SFF to pay premium for x-ray technology

Farmers will be paid a premium for supplying lambs to Silver
Fern Farms that meet its target carcass conformation requirements.

The
move is a result of the Dunedin meat co-operative introducing its MVTS
X-ray technology in its Finegand, Pareora and Takapau works to provide
that conformation information.

Silver Fern Farms (SFF) chief
executive Keith Cooper said meat yield was just part of the carcass
conformation formula, and the technology would generate what he called
"a carcass performance measurement".

"Yield is too definitive."

He
said yield related to the ratio of meat to bone, whereas SFF wanted to
pay for the overall quality of the animal and how the meat was
distributed over the carcass, but especially the portion of high-paying
cuts relative to low-paying cuts.

To earn the premium, farmers
would have to commit supply to SFF after which all their lambs would be
streamed to the three plants initially fitted out with the MVTS
technology.

Premium payments would be over and above the schedule at that time.

Mr
Cooper said, at the recent MVTS launch at Pareora, that other carcass
conformation predictive systems such as VIAscan only provided an
estimate, because it could not see through the carcass like an X-ray.

The
MVTS X-ray technology, developed by Dunedin's Robotic Technologies Ltd
- a joint venture between SFF and Scott Technology - took a 3-D image
of each carcass and accurately predicted the weights of the three
primal cuts (leg, middle and shoulder), and the optimum point at which
to make each cut.

Carcass information was fed into production
scheduling to determine the best processing option for each animal and
would also to programme robotic processing technology.

Scott Technology believes it could have a fully automated lamb-cutting room within five years.

With
a shoulder worth about half that of a leg or middle, accurate cutting
to recover the maximum volume of high-value meat was worthwhile to
farmers and the meat company.

It also counted the number of ribs in each lamb.

While
developing the technology, researchers found that about 18% of lambs
did not have 13 ribs, the assumed number for lambs, but could have 12
or 14.

This can mean wastage, as those lambs that did not conform were processed the same, but the end-product was not always suitable.

Mr
Cooper said the system generated a huge amount of information on each
lamb which could assist with breeding, management and feeding decisions.

Mr
Cooper said the system would cost about 15c to 45c a carcass depending
on installation costs and plant throughput, but improved meat recovery
and matching each lamb to the various markets should increase returns
by $2 to $5 a lamb.

Radio frequency identification traceability
technology would be added to the system allowing the tracking of data,
weight and defects.

Eventually, the MVTS technology would advance to include the ratio of meat to fat to bone.

Alliance
Group has also purchased an MVTS X-ray primal cut, but Mr Cooper said
last week that some of the technology, such as the collection of
carcass information which would be fed back to farmers, would be only
available to SFF.

Alliance has for several years used VIAscan technology to make yield quality contract payments to its suppliers.

VIAscan
took an image of the carcass and, using complex algorithms, compared
the shape and colour profile of the carcass with a database on
thousands of boning trial results.

It divided the carcass into
the three primal cuts and reported the meat yield for each, which was
compared against an ideal market weight range and yield for each area
of the carcass.

Alliance has been involved in Central Progeny
test trials for many years, which identified lines and traits within
sheep breeds which have the desired carcass genetics.