Attainment of AUSMEAT Accreditation of the VIAscan Sheep Carcase System for GR Fat Scoring of Lamb Carcases

Summary

This project was initiated by Gathercole's Tatura as part of a program to improve the efficiency of plant operation and reduce on-plant labour costs. The areas of labour saving as identified within the Gathercole's Tatura operation is the manual processes around carcase grading function and carcase chiller marshalling and sortation.

To achieve the labour reduction and subsequent labour savings, adoption of new technologies are required, primarily the implementation of an automated hook tracking system using RFID and the automation of the GR measurement using VIAscan systems.

The project focused solely on the stage of gaining AUSMEAT Accreditation of the VIAscan Sheep Carcase System for GR Fat Scoring of Lamb Carcases.

The VIAscan Sheep Carcase System demonstrated that it could successfully predict GR Fat Score on Cross-Bred lambs with sufficient accuracy to satisfy AUSMEAT performance criteria when assessed both on an overall basis and within individual fat scores. The collection of data from both Victorian and Western Australian lamb populations also provided confidence in the performance of the system across broad geographic areas.