Meat Standards Australia – IT Support and Development

Summary

Meat Standards Australia (MSA) is a beef and sheep meat eating quality program designed to take the guesswork out of buying and cooking Australian red meat. MSA involves all sectors of the supply chain from paddock to plate. A wide range of cattle and sheep management practices, processing systems, cuts, ageing periods and cooking methods have been researched to determine the impact each has on eating quality.
IT Support and Development
MSA provides a website for industry stakeholders to access their MSA grading data, feedback and MSA information. MSA certified graders and trained personnel in each sector of the supply chain are responsible for collecting information from the live animal, monitoring the processing pathway, measuring a series of attributes on a chilled carcase and utilising the MSA grading program to predict the MSA grade. All of these inputs are necessary to accurately predict eating quality scores for up to 169 cut by cook combinations in the carcase. Following grading, the validated data is sent to MSA for storage within the MLA server.
MLA has developed online resources that allow processors, brand owners, producers and lot feeders to utilise the MSA grading data collected and assess their systems in order to validate any production changes which aim to optimise eating quality.
This includes the ability to:
• Analyse historical data to identify trends in eating quality performance and compliance to specifications
• Use data analysis functions to optimise the harvest of MSA cuts at the desired eating quality to better meet market requirements
• Benchmark suppliers to identify means of increasing consistency of compliance and performance
• Benchmark performance against other geographic regions
• Link carcase grading data to on-farm genetic programs and enable decisions to be made for genetic progress
• Support on-farm management decisions that will result in greater performance
 
The feedback system developed by MLA is a unique resource with a huge amount of powerful data analysis functionality. The aim is to provide a resource that can assist the industry in increasing eating quality within an individual enterprise as well as across a region and industry as a whole.
A new-look online feedback system was launched in 2013/14 to help cattle producers access MSA grading results and explore ways they can improve their performance. myMSA provides MSA producers with easily accessible feedback reports as well as the ability to do more advanced customised reporting. It will also provide instant access to MSA feedback following carcase grading at optimised abattoirs. To assess myMSA clickhttp://www.mymsa.com.au/ or visit http://www.mla.com.au/Marketing-beef-and-lamb/Meat-Standards-Australia​