September 11th 1999

Beef world eyes Dawn Meats Midleton project

By John Shirley

A recent meat conference in Japan spent a session discussing a beef grading project which has been underway at Dawn Meats Midleton for the past five weeks.

This project is a world first in terms of automated beef carcase grading.

The three most advanced non manual grading systems are being assessed head to head on the factory floor.

These are being assessed on;

• Their ability to match expert manual EUROP classifiers from the Department of Agriculture on fatness and conformation.
• Their ability to predict carcase meat yield.

The project is supervised by the Teagasc Food centre and the Department of Agriculture, with the active support of beef factories and the farm organisations.

It is an excellent example of teamwork between research and the industry with the final objective of taking the controversy out of grading in beef factories by introducing mechanical assessment.

This in turn can form the basis for the drive to boost the quality of the Irish beef herd. The venture is being closely monitored by the EU. An EU classification expert has visited Midleton.

This concept has been adopted by the Beef Task Force and a monitoring group representing the various interests has been established with Jim Flanagan Department of agriculture in the chair.

Dawn Meats, Midleton, was selected as the plant had the floor capacity to accommodate the three units on the slaughter line with minimal modification. Also I suspect Dawn is involved because of the commitment of managing director Dan Browne to the project. An interest and enthusiasm shared by Niall Browne, manager of the Midleton factory.

The units under test are;

• BCC 2 from Denmark.
• Viascan from Australia.
• VBS 2000 from Germany.

The three units are installed one after the other on the factory slaughter line. First the carcases are graded by the local Department graders. These are being supervised by the expert classifiers from the Department of Agriculture; - including Nicholas Finnerty and Jim Carew. Then the carcases move by the three automatic graders.

Each unit is based on a series of lights, video image analysis and computer monitors. All of this assessment is done before carcases are weighed.

The idea is that the unit can be fitted on an existing factory line with minimal disruption.

The test is simple and direct. The units will either work or they don't. And each one gets exactly the same carcases to assess. And every effort is being made to present the units with the full range of cattle that are produced on Irish farms.

The trial continues for six weeks during which time about 7000 carcases will be assessed.

After the first week the three companies were given the Department grades on the first 1,500 carcases to allow some initial calibration.

For the next five weeks the units will be assessing each carcase and storing the information.

At the end of the six week period each company will be given the Department grades for the first 3,500 carcases.

The companies go back to base and get out their computer software. From this information the units will be calibrated.

Then the real test.

Having the unit calibrated for Irish carcases, each manufacturer will be asked to predict the grades of the second 3,500 carcases. The units will be assessed on the closeness of this prediction with the grades of the Department of Agriculture.

To date the only comments I could extract on the machines was;

"The units are robust and had minimal breakdowns" - Declan Troy Teagasc National Food Centre head of meat technology.

"The units are operating at the normal speed of the killing line" Niall Browne manager of Dawn Midleton.

Carcase yield

But the trial goes even further.

One of the great attractions of these units is that they claim ability to predict saleable meat yield from the carcase.

To this end the Dawn Meats Midleton project is also boning out 500 steers across a range of fat and conformation grades.

This will be the biggest ever trial looking at the EUROP grid versus yield of saleable beef. Indeed each grade is being split eg U+ and U-, R+ and R-, 4L and 4H etc to get more meaningful information between grade and yield.

The carcases are being boned according to a Bord Bia commercial supermarket specification. This trial is supervised by Michael Murray from the Teagasc National Food Centre.

From this will come very good information to form the basis of price differentials by grade; - how much more is a U 3 worth in the market than an O3 on and so on.

The three companies are expected to have their results by this November. A full report on the project should be available by next January.

Then what?

The monitoring group will assess the results.

The prize for the three companies is that a unit will be installed in every Irish beef export plant.

The initial measurement will be vis-a-vis the EUROP grid. Longer term the logic is that payment should be made on saleable meat yield.

While there is a lot of goodwill for this logical move, I cannot see the EU letting go of the EUROP grid, without a fight.

The three machines

BCC - 2

The BCC - 2 described as the "Fully Automatic Beef Classification Centre" is a product of Danish meat industry research and is being marketed by SFK Technology in Denmark.

Five of these units are operating in Danish beef factories alongside manual grading.

In terms of space needed on the factory floor, the BCC -2 has the biggest area demand with about 3 metres length and 4 metres deep.

The BCC-2 operates by photo scanning one side of the carcase in full light, with no light and then with striped light. The curvature of the carcase is gleaned from angle of light reflection. It predicts shape, fatness, fat colour and meat yield.

Engineer Soren Terp Madsen, who has been with the project in Modulating all along said that Irish carcases are fatten than Danish and the challenge is to cope with this. The recommended cost is 1.5 million kroner or about £158,000.

VBS 2000

The VBS 2000 was developed by E + V company in Oranienburg in Germany. This unit operates by taking one striped light photograph of the outside and another of the inside. From this the unit predicts fat and conformation grade plus fat colour and lean meat yield.

Engineer Axel Hinz said that one unit is in operation in a German beef plant. The unit can process up to 80 per hour and needs about 1.5 metres along the line and 3 metres deep.

The unit is listed at about one quarter of a million deutchmarks or about £100,000.

Viascan

This is the first Viascan unit to operate in Europe but there are about six operating in Australia and the US. In Australia the Woolworth group will buy on a Viscan grade and meat yield read out.

The unit takes pictures of the brightly lit carcase and analyses shape, fatness, fat colour and saleable meat yield.

The unit uses 2 metres of line length and 3.5 metres deep.

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