P.PSH.1492 - Preservation of Meat Products Utilizing Flavour Symmetry Technology
A dehydrated, raw, red meat product, shelf stable at ambient temperatures, that retains its original organoleptic characteristics on rehydration, would be a highly marketable product for the red meat industry in Australia.
| Project start date: | 01 December 2023 |
| Project end date: | 21 December 2024 |
| Publication date: | 08 January 2025 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Grain-fed Cattle, Grass-fed Cattle, Sheep, Goat, Lamb |
| Relevant regions: | National |
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Summary
True Essence Foods (TEF) has developed a proprietary, unique Flavour SymmetryTM (FS) System that enables accelerated dehydration at low temperatures to preserve fresh flavours, texture and nutritional composition. TEF’s FS Technology can dehydrate material to the exact desired water activity by varying air flow, sample parameters, airflow temperature, and time to reduce water activity of foods to less than 0.1 without impacting their organoleptic profile.
Objectives
The primary objective of the study was to test if raw beef can be dehydrated to a shelf-stable state at ambient room temperature using proprietary TEF FS technology, as well as to evaluate whether the reconstituted red meat samples retained the organoleptic characteristics of the original meat product in different food applications.
Key findings
The project demonstrated that:
• TEF FS technology can be used to dehydrate half-inch cubes, ground beef, and stir-fry strips to a water activity of less than 0.6, to form a pliable, dry product that reconstitutes by soaking in cold water and retains the organoleptic properties of the original raw meat in different cooking applications like patties, soups, bolognese sauce and stir fry.
• Ground beef in a Bolognese sauce and stir fry strip applications provides a gourmet product with a rich, meaty flavour and surpasses freeze-dried meat products.
• The dehydrated products were shelf stable under ambient storage conditions for the 65-day trial period. Based on the results to date, longer storage times are likely to be attainable if the tests are carried on for a longer period of time.
• Larger cuts of meat took a longer time to dry. The ideal cuts for this application are ground beef (80:20 and 90:10) and stir-fry strips.
• A dehydrated red meat product produced using the TEF FS System could create a valuable new, shelf-stable, product that is elevated in taste and flavour to fresh meat and similar to it in texture, and that may be stored at room temperature and be transported through an ambient supply chain.
Benefits to industry
The study demonstrated the potential to apply TEF FS Technology to make a new shelf stable, red meat product that can be used to reach markets that are currently limited in the use of raw red meat. A TEF-processed product would allow remote communities, campers, disaster relief and other situations that may lack refrigeration to have access to raw red meat for various food applications. The technology is easy to implement, and initial economics of the technology appear profitable.
MLA action
Samples to be received by MLA for Sam Burke to rehydrate and cook with recommended recipes late 2024 Sydney.
Future research
A larger scale, longer term study to better define dehydration parameters would be useful to define processing efficiencies that would help define manufacturing costs of the TEF FS technology. Collaboration with large scale processors would also be useful to define product handling parameters and develop a system for large scale industrial implementation.
More information
| Project manager: | Alicia Waddington |
| Contact email: | reports@mla.com.au |
| Primary researcher: | True Essence Foods Inc |
