Meat Standards Australia (MSA) delivers record $326 million in farmgate returns in 2023-2024
While the MSA sheepmeat cuts-based model continues to move closer to commercialisation with further supply chain activities undertaken in 2023–24.
Established by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) in 1998, the MSA program delivered a record $326 million in estimated additional farm gate returns to MSA producers, up from the previous record of $259 million in 2022–23.
According to MSA Program Manager, David Packer, this is a direct result of increased producer involvement and improvement, processors and brand owners extracting more value from the program to share along the supply chain and dedicated investment into research and development which centres around the goal to make all cattle and sheep eligible for MSA.
"In the past year, more than 3.88 million cattle were presented for MSA grading through 42 Australian MSA-licensed beef processors, the most cattle ever consigned. . This equates to over 50% of all cattle slaughtered in Australia, with 3.64 million cattle meeting the minimum MSA requirements", Dr Packer said.
The dedicated beef producers consigning to MSA have shown their ability to keep improving the quality of their beef. In 2023–24, the average MSA Index that represents the eating quality of a compliant carcase was 58.36, another record set this year, demonstrating the tremendous gains the industry continues to make to produce more beef that meets consumer needs.
"The MSA program continues to play an important role in contributing toward the red meat industry’s 2030 goal of doubling the value of Australian red meat sales and ensuring continued trust in Australian red meat".
Key to the success and expansion of the MSA program are MLA’s adoption activities that support producers, processors, brand owners and other supply chain stakeholders to adopt eating quality principles to generate value.
MLA launched the new myFeedback online platform in 2023–24 to assist producers in making data-driven decisions on farm, centred around improving carcase value attributes of eating quality, lean meat yield and health of livestock, in line with market requirements.
By collating animal disease and defect data, alongside carcase and eating quality information, producers can more accurately benchmark their performance.
"myFeedback is being seen as a valuable source for industry to access MSA grading and carcase data in one place. This is an expansion to now include animal disease and defect information from participating processors, allows producers to assess all outcomes that drive performance and carcase value, and identify opportunities for the future". Dr Packer said.
MSA beef
A total of 13,923 beef producers consigned cattle for MSA grading, an increase of 2603 on the total number of beef producers who consigned cattle in 2022–23.
By volume, Queensland processed the greatest number of MSA-graded cattle with 1.8 million head, making up 45% of the total MSA-graded cattle. While New South Wales and Victoria both had increases over 100,000 head. Supporting continual growth of the MSA program was the licensing of three new beef processor sites to bring the total to 42 MSA licenced processing facilities.
Grainfed cattle represented 53% of MSA-graded cattle in 2023–24. The proportion of non-grainfed cattle grew again in 2023–24, representing 47% of MSA-graded cattle – an increase of six percentage points from 2022–23. The increased non-grainfed trend has continued from last year as the herd rebuild continued and seasonal conditions supported by on-farm finishing.
MSA sheepmeat
In 2023–24, more than 2.37 million lambs followed MSA pathways through 14 MSA-licensed processing facilities across New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia.
"The MSA sheepmeat cuts-based model continues to move closer to commercialisation with further supply chain activities undertaken in 2023–24 to understand eating quality variation in commercial supply chains and examine brand opportunities", Dr Packer said.
"A number of processors have now been able to trial higher eating quality lamb in both domestic and international markets.
"Their aim is to understand consumer sentiment and willingness to pay for eating quality consistency, providing opportunity for branding of Australian sheepmeat underpinned by eating quality grading.
"Several sheep carcase competitions have now included eating quality through the MSA sheepmeat cuts-based model, including the 2024 LambEx carcase competition. This allows for participants and observers to understand current eating quality performance in balance with other value drivers such as feedlot performance or carcase weight, providing insights into opportunities for improvements", Dr Packer said.
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