What is New in the Science of Meat Quality
The American Meat Science Association (AMSA) is pleased to announce, Dr. JF Hocquette and Dr. Ranjith Ramanathan will be the featured speakers in the concurrent symposium entitled “What is New in the Science of Meat Quality” on Monday, August 3, 2020 during the 66th International Congress of Meat Science and Technology (ICoMST) and the AMSA 73rd Reciprocal Meat Conference (RMC) exclusively virtual meeting. This session will be sponsored by American Foods Group.
The featured presentations include:
Research in beef tenderness and palatability in the era of big data: In recent years, research has focused on predicting the palatability of beef using muscle biochemical traits, their genetic markers, and other biomarkers. In these approaches, a precision definition of the variable to predict (tenderness assessed by panelists, untrained consumers, or shear force), as well as repeatability of the measurements are crucial to compare results across labs and for enabling consolidation of separate datasets, creating a significant data resource for the derivation of more robust predictive models, and more rigorous validation testing. Research was focused on tenderness, since flavour and other components of palatability are difficult to replicate through laboratory approaches. This “big data” approach would require careful definition of trait ontologies and transparent principles for data sharing, management, and contributor recognition. As in other scientific fields, meat science researchers should improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of data (known as the FAIR principles). Furthermore, with the rapid evolution of new measurement technologies, the traits that they measure must be consistently described, enhancing our ability to integrate these new measurements into existing description systems. For beef, strategic choices have to be made in order to consider real consumers’ expectations, not well estimated correctly by lab approaches. This strategy has been successfully developed in Australia, which set up the “Meat Standards Australia” grading scheme, now partly adopted by the local beef industry. In this session, Dr. JF Hocquette, Research Scientist for the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, will discuss the ambitions of the International Meat Research 3G Foundation is to develop beef ontology, to set up an international database with a huge number of consumers’ scores related to beef palatability and collected according to standard protocols. Another goal of the foundation is to support the beef industry by offering an international predictive model of beef palatability, flexible enough to take into account any local livestock characteristics or any regional consumer specificity. This approach is supported by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which is promoting development of regulations and norms, technical cooperation and exchange of best expertise and practices. This will substantially improve the transparency of data flow and price signaling between all participants of the value chain, from beef producers through to consumers at retail.
Recent updates in meat color research: Integrating traditional and high-throughput approaches: Deviation from bright-cherry red color of meat results in less consumer acceptance and discounted in the value chain. In this presentation, Dr. Ranjith Ramanathan, Associate Professor of Meat Science and Leo and Kathy Endowed Research Professorship at Oklahoma State University, will focus on both fundamental and applied approaches to understand the effects of pH on biochemical changes, oxygen diffusion, and its impact on meat color. Recent updates utilizing high-throughput omics approaches to elucidate the biochemical changes with high-pH will be discussed. Further, emphasis will be given to improve the appearance of dark-cutting beef using active packaging and enhancement strategies.
The American Meat Science Association (AMSA) is pleased to announce, Dr. Cheikh Fall and Mr. Kent Sisson will be the featured speakers in the concurrent symposium entitled “Gaining Access to Global Food Trade” on Tuesday, August 4, 2020 during the 66th International Congress of Meat Science and Technology (ICoMST) and the AMSA 73rd Reciprocal Meat Conference (RMC) exclusively virtual meeting. This session will be sponsored by the National Pork Board.
The featured presentations include:
Main Red Meat Seizure Reasons in Senegal: Example of Dakar slaughterhouse, from 2014 to 2018: Meat inspection at slaughterhouses is among the most important responsibility devoted to Veterinary services in Senegal. In this session Dr. Cheikh Fall, Veterinarian Consultant, will review the five-year retrospective (2014-2018) study to give an overview of the main seizure reasons and quantities of red meat (cattle, sheep and goats) seized in Dakar slaughterhouse, the biggest facility in the country. This analysis highlights also the significations and the limitations of data recorded. Data were collected from Dakar Slaughterhouse annual reports, analyzed and interpreted with MS Excel. In total, red meat seizures in Dakar slaughterhouse represent around 0,15% of slaughters and is valued at 123,440$ annually. Tuberculosis, Cysticercosis and Putrefaction Totalize 80% of the weight of cattle carcasses seized while, Distomatosis due to Fasciola gigantica represents more than 50% of the total weight of seizures of organs and 22% of the total weight of both organs and carcasses of cattle slaughters. The very limited implication of meat inspection to animal diseases surveillance system, the absence of laboratory investigation to clarify findings, the lack of traceability of slaughter animals and the non-codification of seizure reasons’ terminology limit the use of available data. A great attention should be paid to the quality of data recorded at slaughterhouses and to the occurrence and burden of Tuberculosis, Distomatosis and Cysticercosis in order to address them.
The Development & Importance of Cold Chain Infrastructure and Practices: Key to Maintaining a Safe, Abundant, and Secure Supply of Meat and Poultry for ASEAN Consumers: This discussion will focus on how consumer demand for meat and poultry in the ASEAN region has grown in line with rising per capita incomes and tremendous economic growth over the past two decades, overlaid on how the lagging development of modern cold chain infrastructure, design, operations, and logistics have challenged the safe and secure distribution of locally produced and imported protein. Mr. Kent Sisson, President of Siam Professionals LLC., will identify some of the greatest challenges in the region and also recent advancements and efforts to overcome those constraints along the entire cold chain continuum from the point of slaughter, processing, storage, and transportation to modern supermarkets as well as traditional open air wet markets. He will draw upon his 27 years of experience as a U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Service officer serving eight years in Indonesia and Malaysia, and his private sector research over the past three years conducted in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam on the cold chain and food trade logistics.
The 66th ICoMST and AMSA 73rd RMC will be held August 3-6, 2020 online in the virtual format. For more information please visit: www.icomst2020.com or contact Deidrea Mabry 1-800-517-AMSA ext. 12.
