MLA’s product and packaging innovation program explores new products and occasions, new packaging and business model innovations to transform commodity red meat (and its components) into higher value solutions, thereby contributing to industry’s economic and environmental sustainability.
Currently 20% of the carcase delivers 80% of the value, with some parts of the carcase considered waste and attracting little to no value. Through focusing on product and market diversification, this program seeks to remap the carcase from the perspective of how its individual components could be utilised as ingredients in food and other products. The program also focuses on developing new business models and supply chains to derive the highest possible premium for each part of the carcase.
Outcomes
New beef protein powder launched at Beef Australia
MLA’s investment and collaboration with Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has delivered an allergen-free protein powder from red meat, converting red meat into an innovative new food ingredient capable of creating an additional revenue stream for the industry.
Just Meat protein powder’s nutritional and allergen-free profile sets it apart from other protein powders, offering broad applications from protein balls and shakes to energy drinks and aged care supplements. The product’s shelf-stability, transportability and versality of a protein source offers significant competitive advantage in capturing part of the $3.8 billion health and wellness market.
Bovine and ovine collagen opportunities
An investigation into ovine collagen has found significant opportunities for the product, driven by current market trends. Ovine collagen is a high quality collagen product suitable for cosmetic and pharmaceutical purposes, and the Australian red meat industry is well placed to capitalise on this.
This investigation follows the successful launch of the world-first commercial range of certified organic collagen supplements, derived from low-value bovine inputs shipped to the United States last year. The completion of the ‘Hides to Riches’ research project in partnership with Freeze Dry Industries (FDI) resulted in the development of a scalable collagen extraction process through the application of freeze dry technology. This collagen has also achieved Australian Certified Organic status.
Freeze Dry Industries has plans to process Australian bovine collagen from up to 50,000 hides this year. The global collagen market is expected to be worth about $11 billion by 2030 and a huge demand for collagen to assist with the aging process for skin, joint health and improve overall human wellness.
Nutraceutical market evaluation
As part of an MLA-funded project, a full review of the low value red meat supply chain was conducted so that all additional value-add opportunities from cattle carcases can be identified.
Researchers explored how underutilised red meat organs and glands can be transformed into nutraceutical ingredients, the costs and returns of doing so, and hurdles that need to be evaluated and addressed. This research involved:
- identifying key nutraceutical market opportunities, barriers and consumer pain points
- identifying available raw materials
- determining yield and cost imposts to harvest and prepare nutraceutical ingredients to desired specifications
- completion of a business case to establish the desirability, feasibility and viability to establish a commercially sustainable business that demonstrates a significant value multiplier for processing beef organ meat into powders.
The evaluation found that despite additional costs for harvesting, freeze-drying, milling and packing, significantly higher returns can be achieved compared with rendering or whole frozen sale. Depending on the organ, the margin per head (wholesale sales price less additional processing costs) for sale of freeze-dried powders can be 100–400 times the margin from rendering, and 5–15 times the margin from sale as frozen organs.
Sustainable red meat packaging
The Sustainable Red Meat Packaging State of Play report has delivered an unbiased baseline evaluation on the future of sustainable meat packaging.
The role of packaging is rapidly transitioning from ‘fit for purpose’ to the incorporation of the global recommendation to be ‘designed for recyclability’. With structural requirements to provide barrier protection while maintaining shelf life and food safety, meat packaging remains complex. Increasingly rigorous sustainability requirements from key customers, regulators and consumers are presenting challenges to the domestic and international trade of Australian packaged red meat products.
While some progress had been made towards the Australian Packaging Covenant (APCO) Sustainability Packaging Guidelines (which prescribe 10 guiding principles to assist in sustainable design and packaging), the packaging industry has acknowledged an inability to meet the APCO targets, and new packaging design will be regulated and implemented under Commonwealth law.
The investigation found for continued use of plastic to be sustainable, it requires a complete system to collect and reprocess it into materials that can be used again for food packaging. While recycling of rigid plastic red meat packaging via kerbside collection has been successful, processing of plastic into food grade material (advanced or chemical recycling) is not happening at the scale required. Without this capability, the Australian plastics economy does not benefit from full circularity and red meat risks economic penalties should Extended Producer Responsibility levies be introduced.