Chilled lamb prospects bright as longer shelf life claimed

Press, 9 August 1985, Page 13

Chilled lamb prospects bright as longer shelf life claimed

By

HUGH STRINGLEMAN

The New Zealand meat industry is leaving behind the shackles of the frozen

carcase and running into the future with long-life chilled products. A total of over 100 days storage life and then five days on retail display for sheepmeats has now been claimed by meat industry researchers and representatives of two chilled packaging systems. With top quality packaging, meat preparation and containerisation, chilled products can be surface shipped to practically any Northern Hemisphere market, they claim.

Lamb cuts will last 12 weeks, giving the meat marketers as much flexibility with lamb as they have enjoyed with beef and vension for some years. The most widespread long-life packaging system used by the New Zealand meat industry is the Cryovac system, promoted under licence here by W. R. Grace (N.Z.), Ltd. The marketing manager of the Cryovac division, Mr Graham Bainbridge, said recently that a major meat exporter had conducted well-reasearched trials which showed chilled lamb to be in an acceptable condition after 110 days. He said he was responding to suggestions that the

freezing industry lacked the technology to gain access to world markets with con-sumer-packaged chilled lamb. The United States market and the European supermarket trade have long been identified as targets for chilled rather than frozen cuts.

“Vacuum packaged chilled lamb has been exported to the British market for the past four years and a market life of 10 weeks is a prerequisite of this trade. “A similar vacuum packaging technique has been used by New Zealand beef exporters for 15 years. In this case the very demanding Japanese market requires a shelf life of up to 16 weeks.”

But Mr Bainbridge observed that Cryovac was a packaging system and not just an impermeable film.

“The condition of the animal at slaughter, hygiene and temperature control are important factors to be considered along with the packaging material. “The requirements are well within the competence of New Zealand meat processors and the packaging industry.” By so speaking, Mr Bainbridge was drawing attention to the other major

stream of research in this field, that of chilled temperature control. The Meat Industry Research Institute of New Zealand, in Hamilton, has worked in this area for a while and recently introduced a “datalogger” which records the temperature inside a chilled product shipping container. At the destination the machine can be plugged into a computer using M.1.R.N.Z.-developed software and an estimate of the remaining shelf-life of the meat produced from the fluctuations in temperature recorded in transit. Such a system recongnises that the maintenance of a constant termperature of minus one degree is the optimum for long life and significant variations from this temperature can shorten the period of healthy and acceptable condition.

New Zealand’s largest meat processing company, Waitaki N.Z. Refrigerating, Ltd is involved with M.I.R.N.Z. in trials to test new films, packaging techniques such as inert gas injection and the temperature logging system. These trials are being conducted at the company’s Smithfield

works, near Timaru. A spokesperson, Miss Liz Young, said the trials were at an .early stage and that the company would publicise results later this year or early next year.

Several combinations of films and processes were involved, she said, ar.-’ so far product was not being sent overseas. She wanted to urge caution on the rest of the industry, saying that nothing which promised significantly longer shelf or market life was proven yet.

It is understood that one new film being trialled comes from U.E.B. Industries and contains an aluminium layer to cut light and air permeability. A spokesman of U.E.B. in Auckland, Mr Geoff Wales, said details of the new film were confidential but he described as “exciting” the implications for longer life of chilled lamb cuts. Meanwhile, a meeting in Wellington today will be the second for a working party of meat industry organisations studying chilled meat exports. The working party was established recently on the initiative of the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, who believes that considerable market opportunities exist for chilled meat, especially lamb.

A situation report on the

supply of chilled meat has been prepared by the board for today’s meeting between its own representatives and those from the Meat Industry Association, the Meat Industry Research Institute and the M.A.F. The board is also discussing proposals for exporting chilled lamb to the United States.

The proposal is seen as the salvation for declining sheepmeat sales in the United States but there is a worry that the local producers could see this proposal as even more of a threat to its market than frozen meat.

New Zealand has previously adhered to a gentleman’s agreement not to export its chilled lamb to the United States.

But an inability to develop the chilled product has been the greatest factor in stopping sales previously, and this has now changed.

The board has been watching the United States market closely, seeing it as having more potential for chilled lamb imports than any other country in the world.

A number of individual meat companies, including Waitaki N.Z. Refrigerating and Borthwicks-C.W.S. are also understood to be particularly interested in the market.