MSA/Aus-Meat and company grades integration at Nolan Meats.

Summary

The Meat standards australia Australia (MSA) program was implemented with the core goal to measure and control (systems and standards) against known Critical control points within an enterprise’s Total quality management system based on consumers’ quality research.
Traditionally the assessment of carcases for quality attributes has been confined to collection of attributes post chilling, some 12 hours after slaughter.
Inherent issues related to traditional practices include: Lag time to make decisions based on quality Activities based on ‘Night Shift’ work times Speed of collection required.
In line with the industries desire to reduce cost allocated to this activity and ability to drive change in the processing sector, MSA investigated the possibility of varying collection points for carcase attributes in order to create a streamlined effect.
MSA Express ‘Hot Grading’ was developed for industry to ensure the grading process could be more suitable to larger processing facilities. ‘Hot Grading’ does not eliminate chiller assessment.
Chiller assessment is still required for the collection of meat colour, MSA marbling, ultimate pH and loin temperature for an eating quality score to be applied to a carcase.