1. Breeding: From sustainable profitable sheep to meeting consumer preferences
Neville Jopson and Cameron Craigie

2. Can we make change through selective breeding?

3. Coopworth genetic selection lines (15 years of ‘progress’)

4. Sheep productivity changes over 25 years
Change
Sheep numbers
Million
57.5
27.6
48.0%
Lambing performance
lambs/100 ewes
100.4
124.0
123.5%
Carcass weight
kg/head
14.3
18.3
128.0%
Lamb production
kg/ewe
9.8
19.5
199.8%
Lamb production on a bone-in basis
1000 tonnes
Around 360
372.0
Nutrition, management and breed substitution have contributed, but genetics have played a major role

5. Genetic selection Medium to long term i.e. small changes per year
Benefits are permeant and cumulative
Improve a number of things at the same time, but some negative associations
Need to measure it to improve it
Easier to change some traits compared to other traits

6. Traits under selection
Productivity traits
Reproduction (NLB)
Survival
Growth rate (WWT, LW8)
Meat and meat yield
Wool
Stayability
Health traits
Parasite resistance/resilience
Facial eczema
Dags
Bare belly and points

7. Meat and meat yield Definitions are very important!
SIL meat yield is weight of lean meat recovered at a fixed carcass weight
No premium for yield in and of itself
Value is in having more product to sell
But what comes along with it?

8. Associated changes/challenges
Substantial genetic improvements in reproduction, growth rates, and meat over long periods of time
Carcass weight has increased by an average of 175g/year since 1981, while maintaining or reducing fat cover
Negative associations
Have we removed too much fat for ewe performance?
Intramuscular fat content?

9. Selection beyond productivity
On-farm animal performance has improved substantially due to selective breeding
‘Sustainability traits’ such as greenhouse gas emissions under development
Post-slaughter traits can be improved, and breeders have an interest even though they may not be paid directly for them yet
Don’t want eating quality to decline as a side effect of our genetic selection

10. Part 2: From sustainable profitable sheep to meeting consumer preferences
Neville Jopson and Cameron Craigie

11. Lamb meat quality and consumers
Intrinsic
Properties of the meat product (e.g. Taste)
Extrinsic
Production System (e.g. Pasture-based, extensive)
Understanding the link between the two is fundamental
Is that the NZ story?

12. Consumer Preferences? NZ exports meat to >120 markets
Each has their own preferences
Religious slaughter
Frozen vs. chilled
Meat quality
Functionality
Shelf life
Provenance and traceability
Production methods
etc. etc.

13. Meat Quality - pick your favorite

14. What do we mean by Eating Quality?
Means different things to different people
Extremely difficult to define
Thanks to the MSA system being trialed in many different countries there is a broad consensus as to what “meat quality” might mean:
Tenderness, Juiciness, Flavour
This does not mean that other quality aspects are not important!
> Depends on product type and target market

15. Example: Intramuscular fat and pH in lamb
IMF% > Meat eating quality but antagonistically correlated with selection for growth traits.
pH > Key quality parameter for lamb shelf life, and as an indicator for stress-free lambs
These traits have a genetic basis and are extremely important to consumer acceptability and thanks to Beef + Lamb NZ Genetics are now are a key priority for the NZ sheep industry
IMF explains >11% of the variation in overall eating quality
NZ Lamb IMF is ~2.5% and it has been proposed by Aus researchers that lamb needs 4-5%! 
Chilled aging may partially off-set the need for such high levels in NZ lamb.

16. Are NZ world leaders?
In some cases New Zealand is world leading in production and processing to achieve high quality lamb (think chilled shelf life, electrical stim)
In other cases, there are no world leaders! (e.g. routine measurement of meat eating quality and eating quality guarantees)
Is that an opportunity for us?

17. The Problem - complexity
Tens of Processors &
Meat Marketing Co's
Millions of Lambs
Millions of Consumers
Thousands of Farms
Thousands of Customers
Hundreds of Transporters
Hundreds of Cuts/specs
Integral link between production and consumption side of value chain

18. Improving our Understanding of EQ
 Variation in the raw material
A Single ewe lamb slaughtered off mum in November vs. Twin wether lamb finished on pasture slaughtered in February what's the difference in eating quality? 
Dribs and Drabs approach > we only know a small part of the production/processing factor impacts on EQ
Until we have a routine method of assessing meat product quality on millions of lambs in real-time, our understanding of the situation and trying to improve will be hit and miss.

19. We are working on a solution!
Measurable and Marketable
Near Infrared Spectroscopy and Hyperspectral Imaging can measure IMF% and pH in lamb
Beef + Lamb NZ Genetics & Alliance Group have championed this technology and NZ is now world leading
Close to commercial implementation
Not the full solution, combination of sensors required
Next Gen red meat sensor project has just started funded by MBIE

20. MBIE Red Meat Sensors Project
Led by AgResearch (Craigie)
New 5 year collaborative research project just started
Design-lead approach to developing sensors for measuring meat texture, composition and pH
Pre-competitive focus
“Design” the variation for sensor evaluation
Best Teams Approach
850k p.a. for 5 years
Very wide industry support for this project including Individual meat companies, Beef + Lamb NZ Genetics and the MIA

21. Summary
Meat Quality means many things > Focus on understanding what combinations of animal production and processing consistently deliver good results for tenderness, juiciness and flavour.
The problem is very complex, and we need a magnitude shift in objective meat quality measurement coupled with existing data frameworks to untangle the interactions > This is close to a reality.
We are ahead of the pack and there is a real opportunity for NZ to define its self as world leading producers of high-quality lamb based on intrinsic + extrinsic quality factors, but only if we can identify what works within the production chain and move in the right direction (Profitably).
We believe that this is part of the NZ story, and that it will be Measurable and Marketable!

22. Acknowledgements