L.EQT.1905 - Estimation of the age/maturity of beef and sheep using spatially resolved visible-near-infrared spectroscopy – Phase 2

Summary

This project examined whether NIR spectra of skin/hide samples can be used to accurately estimate the age/maturity of animals with a particular focus on beef and sheep. Conceptually, a small area of skin and muscle could be evaluated on line and at line speed, providing an accurate estimate of animal age/maturity and its effect on eating quality.

Objectives

1. Test the probe on a statistically significant amount of cattle and sheep to determine the viability of the probe.
2. Perform an evaluation of the benefits of using spatially resolved Vis-NIRS compared to standard Vis-NIRS to quantify textural characteristics (tenderness) of meat.

Key findings

The results, while indicating a weak relationship of hide spectra with cattle age, are not sufficient in terms of its usefulness in practice unless the degradation in model performance due to systematic instrument variation can be removed.

In order to overcome this, future studies would have to ensure a much shorter data collection period for acquiring the training set to develop the models and should include a rigorous instrument standardisation protocol in order to reduce the impact of changes in the device characteristics over time. Furthermore, the complexity of the protocol due to the nature of collecting the hide samples and making it measurement ready, made it difficult to achieve consistently accurate measurements.

This could also have contributed to the high prediction errors. Our later experience with devising the experimental protocol and collecting spectra from live sheep, indicates that using live animals will be less complicated than collecting spectra of hides at the abattoir after the slaughter of animals.

The study indicates that the age of sheep can be estimated using spectra collected from the loin and neck region of live animals.

Benefits to industry

The results indicate that the Vis-NIR measurements have the potential to provide information regarding cattle age and on other factors affecting meat quality. Such a technology, if fully developed, can be of high value to industry by providing an inexpensive and standardised measure of age and, more broadly, meat quality, which could inform pricing of the meat.

MLA action

This final report will be published on the MLA R&D website.

Future research

Three recommendations arise from the study for determining cattle age.

• Firstly, the collection of calibration dataset should be over a short time span of two to three months.
• Secondly, a rigorous protocol for standardising the instrument must be developed for long-term maintenance of the calibration model since the device will be used for a long time and carrying out a full calibration at regular intervals would not be feasible.
• Thirdly, given the experience during data collection from live sheep, acquiring spectra from live cattle instead of hides at slaughter will be preferable.