Meat Technology
The role of the department is to support competitiveness and innovation in the meat industry through a high quality scientifically sound research programme. Several challenges face the Irish meat industry on both home and export markets. It must develop new skills, particularly in product innovation and marketing, for competitive success.
The Meat Technology Department (Head: anne.mullen@teagasc.ie) has circa 25 staff, including postgraduate students (see more…) with a wide range of ongoing projects (see more...)
Novel post-mortem interventions are being examined with a view to optimising fresh meat quality, while providing economically sound solutions to the industry The Meat Quality Molecular Biology research programme aims to identify molecular signatures (genes, proteins, metabolites) associated with quality.
Improvement of the fatty acid composition of grass-fed beef is being pursued, through innovative nutritional strategies, without compromising colour and shelf life. Under the Foods for Health initiative, one objective is to increase the concentration of components of meat which are considered to be of benefit to human health, with particular emphasis on fatty acids.
Under a research programme to develop functional beef and beef-products, both fresh meat and meat products have been produced with improved fatty acid profile. A new project will focus on bioactive peptides with positive implications for health. Innovations in value added and novel meat products including new curing technologies are under investigation.
A major 5-year integrated project “Advancing Beef Safety and Quality Through Research and Innovation” (ProSafeBeef ) has commenced. It is supported by the 6th Framework Programme of the EU and involves 42 leading research and industrial organisations working in different countries.
In collaboration with the Food Market Research Unit, researchers are testing and implementing a PACCP (Palatability Assured Critical Control Point) based grading system for Irish beef. The system being tested is the Meat Standard Australia (MSA) model, which predicts consumer palatability scores for individual cuts of beef.
The meat technology programme is part-funded by the Food Institutional Research Measure (FIRM) of the Department of Agriculture and Food, the European Union (EU), and other institutions, agencies and food companies.
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