Evaluation of cold chain integrity in export of hard frozen & chilled red meat products into Dubai & Middle East markets
| Project start date: | 15 March 2007 |
| Project end date: | 31 August 2007 |
| Publication date: | 31 August 2007 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Sheep, Goat, Lamb, Grassfed cattle, Grainfed cattle |
Summary
Presently the Red Meat export industry into Dubai and the Middle East is increasing. Exports in lamb into the Middle East increasing by 60% in the period from February 2005 to February 2006, while Australian beef exports to the Middle East have strengthened during the first quarter of 2006, increasing 55 percent compared to 2005 levels, to 844 metric tons. Also marked is the increase in the overall demand for chilled red meat exports in a domestic industry that has been traditionally an exporter of hard frozen product.
In the past the industry has not had a large exposure to the higher risk chilled export, but this is changing with over 20% of meat exports now being chilled. This will put new demands on the industry and insurance bodies, demands which we believe our current trials into Dubai and the Middle East will assist in addressing to an extent. Almost 50% (by value) of our meat exports to this region is now chilled. Previous MLA studies have identified that the handling of freight from ‘destination port’ to ‘final destination point’ in Dubai is a high risk ’critical link’ in the Cold chain and this needs to be further studied.
The project aims to assist in the benchmarking of standards in cold chain management into Middle Eastern markets which will enable MLA and exporter stakeholders to monitor the supply chain of Red Meat sea and air freight exports into Dubai with a heightened focus on critical transhipment points through Singapore and Malaysia. These temperature-related findings will assist in devising a ‘risk management’ strategy which will establish provision for the increased demand for chilled product into Dubai and the Middle East. The project will also look into the viability of streamlining mandatory Refrigerator Index (RI) calculator protocol with commercially available monitoring software.
Observation and monitoring of the supply chain and its cold change management into the Middle East market has shown to have sufficient monitoring and control over temperature during transport. Therefore there were no such requirements for a risk management strategy to be developed. However monitoring of the entire supply chain will continue and future projects may arise.
