Australians love their beef. Domestic expenditure on beef was estimated at AU$6.6 billion in financial year 2012-2013 (July 1-June 30), according to Meat & Livestock Australia Limited (MLA) an organization that delivers marketing and R&D services for Australia’s cattle, sheep, and goat producers. Australians ate about 71.7 pounds of beef per person during that same time period. Around 94 percent of Australian fresh meat buyers purchased beef in 2012-13, according to AC Nielsen Homescan.
Australia is a relatively small beef producer on a global scale, accounting for just 3.9 percent of the world’s beef, but it is one of the world’s most efficient producers of cattle, says Ian Jenson, MLA’s Sydney-based manager of market access science and technology.
Australia’s national cattle herd stands at 27.5 million head, including 13.6 million beef cows and
heifers, all on 77,164 properties. The gross value of Australian cattle and calf production is estimated at AU$7.4 billion.
The Australian beef industry can broadly be divided into the northern and southern production systems, Jenson points out. “Queensland is the biggest producer of beef and veal,” he says. “Australia has 3 percent of the world cattle inventory and is the world’s seventh largest beef producer. Australia produces 4 percent of the world’s beef supply and is the third largest beef exporter.”
According to MLA, the beef industry accounts for 57 percent of all farms with agricultural activity. The red meat industry employs approximately 200,000 workers across farm, processing, and retail sectors.
Australia produced around 2.2 million tonnes of beef and veal in 2012-2013. (One Australian tonne equals 2,204.623 pounds.) Some 2.6 million grain fed cattle were marketed in 2012-2013, which was 33 percent of all adult cattle slaughtered, as per MLA.
The 2012-13 value of Australian cattle and calf production (including live exports) is approximately AU$7.4 billion, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Cattle contributed 16 percent of the total farm value of AU$47.3 billion in 2011-12. The direct contribution of beef and live cattle to gross domestic product is approximately
1 percent.
Beef Exports
“Since our population is small, beef consumption is relatively low,” Jenson relates. “As a result, Australia is able to export a significant volume of beef each year and is the world’s third largest exporter of beef.”
More than 60 percent of Australian beef is exported, making Australia one of the three largest beef exporters alongside India and Brazil. “Australia exports beef to a number of different markets, the largest of these currently being the U.S., followed by Japan, South Korea, and China,” Jenson says.
“We supply a huge variety of grades and types of beef and lamb to the U.S., and have an office in Washington D.C. that can steer potential purchasers in the right direction to meet their needs,” Jenson adds.
The majority of beef exported from Australia to the U.S. is manufacturing beef or trim for grinding, also called 90CL. “Manufacturing beef alone accounts for around one quarter of the total,” Jenson notes. “2014 has been a large growth year for exports to the U.S., largely due to very low supplies of U.S.-produced beef leading to demand for imported product. Beef exports to the U.S. are likely to exceed 300,000 tonnes, this year, which would be the largest annual volume in over a decade, worth more than AU$1.5 billion.”
The beef industry contributes 13 percent to total Australian farm exports and in 2012-2013 the country exported 67 percent of its total beef and veal production to more than 100 countries.
The value of total beef and veal exports in 2012-2013 was AU$5.06 billion. The value of Australia’s live cattle exports in 2012-2013 was AU$590 million.
“Most of MLA’s funding comes from transaction levies placed on the sale of livestock, with the Australian Government providing matched funding for levy investment in most R&D,” Jenson explains, adding that MLA creates opportunities for livestock supply chains from their combined investments to build demand, both domestic and international, and productivity.
“To that end, MLA strongly supports keeping food safe by assisting the Australian red meat industry manage food safety and quality,” Jenson says. “MLA is the leading provider of research and development solutions for Australia’s red meat industry and is dedicated helping the industry maintain its excellent reputation for product safety, both in Australia and overseas.”
SAFEMEAT is the food safety partnership between the Australian red meat industry and the government. The primary role of SAFEMEAT is overseeing and promoting sound management systems in the red meat industry to ensure the delivery of safe and hygienic products. “MLA conducts research and develops systems to satisfy the needs identified by SAFEMEAT,” Jenson points out.
A key undertaking within SAFEMEAT is the Microbiological Food Safety Research and Development Program, which, Jenson says, is designed to develop a sound scientific basis for food safety and microbiological risk management. “SAFEMEAT places importance on identifying knowledge gaps for food safety risks along the supply chain and conducting research to improve the understanding of foodborne hazards and maintain the status of Australian red meat as safe and healthy,” he emphasizes.
“Healthy livestock are the basis for Australia’s broad market access and high productivity,” Jenson continues. “As an island continent, Australia has a natural barrier to animal and crop diseases, backed by strict quarantine regulations. We have several measures in place to ensure that the safety and quality of Australian red meat are at their highest.”
Meat Standards & Systems
In its ongoing quest to ensure quality and consistency in its product, the Australian red meat industry established a national organization called AUS-MEAT that assumes responsibility for quality standards and accurate descriptions of red meat. AUS-MEAT develops, maintains, and reviews accreditation standards, which are designed to protect the industry’s reputation and integrity in relation to sales, distribution and exports.
“AUS-MEAT has a common language used throughout the marketing chain to ensure all sectors can identify and meet customer requirements,” Jenson says. “It has established specific and high accreditation standards for the processing sector to ensure effective quality assurance procedures are in place every step of the way. In addition to this, a quality management system has been established to cover all aspects of the supply chain.”
While AUS-MEAT sets the standards for industry, Meat Standards Australia (MSA) ensures eating quality at the consumer level. Integrity systems such as Livestock Production Assurance (LPA), the National Feedlot Accreditation Scheme (NFAS), and the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) have also been developed to verify and ensure food safety and quality along the supply chain.
“MSA is a grading system for beef and sheep meat that labels the product with a guaranteed grade and best cooking method to maintain consistency in eating quality,” Jenson says. “When MSA beef and sheep meat are cooked as described, the eating quality is guaranteed at the labeled grade.”
A wide range of cattle and sheep management practices, processing systems, cuts, ageing periods, and cooking methods have been researched by MLA to determine the impact each has on eating quality, Jenson adds.
LPA is an on-farm standards and quality assurance program through which livestock producers are required to register a unique property code, formally assess their production and husbandry systems, and maintain accurate records. “The program also involves independent audits that are conducted to ensure the program’s integrity is maintained,” Jenson says.
The Australian red meat industry’s commitment to food safety continues beyond the farm gate, with a unique set of industry quality assurance programs covering livestock transport, feedlots and sale yards. These include the aforementioned NFAS and the NLIS programs.
“NFAS is an initiative designed to ensure product quality and integrity in beef feedlots,” Jenson explains. “It covers a wide range of environmental, animal welfare, veterinary practices, and feed ingredients and residues standards. The NLIS is a traceability system to document the movement of cattle, sheep and goats and provides assurance of product integrity, safety, and market eligibility.”
Meat Processing Quality Assurance
At the processing level, Australia’s meat food safety and quality record is a result of Australian Government regulation and industry quality assurance based on food science, touts MLA, contending that this is achieved through regulation and residue testing by the Australian DoA.
“In addition to this, Australian export processing plants have QA measures in the form of mandatory QA for product description and the implementation of HACCP-based QA,” Jenson relates. “Australian export-registered meat processing plants must also have an approved Halal program operating if they are to produce Halal products.”
Meat Safety
An ongoing focus on food safety is a priority for the Australian red meat industry. MLA is involved in meat safety and education at the industry and consumer level, providing information on key food safety issues throughout the food chain.
“A major strength of the Australian beef industry is its disease free, ‘clean and green’ image,” Jenson boasts. “The adoption of the NLIS, which requires cattle to be given an electronic identification ear tag at an early age, contributes to this distinction. As any animal progresses through the supply chain, it can be tracked via the NLIS.”
For Jenson, the benefits of electronic identification technology bring to mind the case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) detected in a dairy cow in the state of Washington in late December 2003, which led the Japanese to suspend U.S. beef imports (intermittently) until July 27, 2006.
“If BSE were to be detected in Australian cattle, the NLIS could trace the animal and locate others that were raised together in a very short time,” he relates. “Australia was the first country to introduce such a system and it has given Australia improved access to many markets.”
So what are the most recent beef safety initiatives in Australia?
“Australia continues to invest in research and development directed at demonstrating and improving food safety and other aspects of product quality to meet the expectations of customers,” Jenson says. “For example, of relevance to the U.S. market, MLA has invested heavily in understanding the behavior of E. coli in our production and processing systems, demonstrating a low prevalence of this microbe and a low risk of illness when Australian manufacturing beef is consumed in hamburgers in the United States.”
Recent MLA-funded research demonstrated the low prevalence of antibiotic resistant Salmonella and E. coli in Australian beef cattle. “We want to stay ahead of the market on issues like antibiotic resistance,” Jenson points out. “The very low prevalence we have found should give confidence to our customers and it tells us that we don’t need to make big changes to our production systems to stay this way.”
The attention to meeting customer expectations doesn’t stop with scientific research, Jenson emphasizes. “Australian processors also meet all U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) requirements, even when those requirements exceed, or are just plain different, to Australian domestic requirements,” he relates. “Inspection of all cattle by veterinarians and testing every lot of manufacturing beef for E. coli O157 and the other Shiga toxin-producing E. coli regulated by FSIS are two examples.”
Leake is a food safety consultant, auditor, and award-winning journalist based in Wilmington, N.C. Reach her at [email protected].
For more information on food safety in Australia, click on additional content:
Food Safety in Australia
Australia: Focus Dairy
Australia: Focus on Horticulture
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