7c per kg extra for beef

By Joe Rea

Again of 7c per kg of beef must be important. That could be the increased return from "hot boning" at current Irish prices. Hot boning means deboning the carcase immediately after slaughter. Pie in the sky or reality?

In 1998 I returned from a visit to New Zealand. I was all-enthusiastic about their beef factory technique of hot boning. The journal of 2 January 1999 told the story. I did not get one phone call, a letter or a contact on the topic.

Then I contacted some beef factory gurus. Still no response. The general view was that I was suffering from jet lag.

Hot boning gains it appears were not relevant to Ireland. Did I get the sums wrong?

To me what was happening in New Zealand in 1998 was a breakthrough. Hot boning New Zealand style was delivering a 3% increase in meat yield. Even at present low Irish prices this is worth an extra 7c per kg.

This is surely an amount not to be ignored, especially when it is alleged that the profit in the Irish beef processing industry is from 1% - 2% (would you believe?).

I had even arranged that one of the New Zealand top management practitioners on hot boning visit Ireland but nobody wanted to know. Seemingly the 3% yield plus did not count. It was simpler to cut the farmers price to achieve the gain. Why confuse the game with "hot boning?"

Tenderbound process keeps meat in shape

Then its fast-forward to 2003. Location - Teagasc's National Food Centre last Thursday.

I attended its outstanding seminar on hot topics in the Irish meat industry. You will never believe what has happened. Hot boning has been discovered in Ireland.

That is not all the good news - it even gets better. This seminar was attended by a cross section of some of our progressive beef plants.

Declan Troy and colleagues at Teagasc gave a highly impressive expose of hot boning. Impressive because they had pushed out the barriers of knowledge relative to what I had seen in New Zealand five years ago.

The Teagasc team actually demonstrated hot boning on a carcase in its abattoir at the Food Centre.

This animal had been slaughtered 40 minutes earlier.

This was coupled by a breakthrough initiated by the centre on the packaging of hot boned beef.

The problem to date with hot boned beef was that sometimes it was not as tender as the conventional method of boning. Also it lost its traditional beef shape, say for strip loins.

Those problems had been solved by the Food Centre. A new packaging technique know as TenderBound solved the shape and critically delivered an extremely tender product.

The result of a tasting panel held during the seminar confirmed a top tender rating for hot boned beef using the TenderBound technique

Hot boning - the savings

Teagasc meat expert Declan Troy set out the savings from hot boning as follows:

• weight loss during chilling (decreases by 1.5% per unit),

• drip loss during normal packing (decreases by about 0/4%),

• reduction in chiller space (by 50%),

• savings of refrigeration input (by 45%),

• quicker turnover in meat plant (by 45%), reduced capital cost for buildings,

• savings on labour (by 20%),

• savings on transport costs,

• easier to bone out.

This is a list of the major savings on meat processing and handling costs. I pressed Declan on what the savings per kg handled would amount to. At this stage he was not prepared to put a figure on the gains from hot boning. To me it is clear that the savings are in line at least with the 3% achieved in New Zealand in 1998.

Declan Troy did point out that there was some downsides to hot boning such as the need to synchronise the slaughter of the animals. Very strict hygiene is required because meat is handled while warm. Staff retraining and some factory investment will be needed along with the modification of the timing of the grading of the carcase.

All important points - however they appear minimal relative to the gains of "hot boning".

But who gets the gains? The Department of Agriculture representative at the conference, Claire Thorpe, put it extremely well with her comment that new science and technology are great but how does one ensure that the farmer gets the increased return from those advances?

Where to from here? The next step is obvious. A pilot hot boning project at factory level. Trying out the hot boning technology including TenderBound packaging. Then test the market with the resulting product. In this pilot project let the food centre measure the net savings and the consequences for beef prices for the primary producer.

This project is a fine measurable achievement by the Food Centre. It shows leadership, innovation and skill in a key component of the industry. Well done, lets have more of the same.