P.PIP.0550 - Teys Australia – Developing capability for external strategic partnerships with experts from Texas Tech University (TTU) Meat Science and Muscle Biology Program

Summary

• This project was established to build capability in the Australian beef industry through a series of collaborative projects supported by Teys Australia and Texas Tech University.
• The focus areas are detailed under Objectives.
• Significant progress was made across all focus areas.
• Of note, the development and implementation of an Operational Leadership was highly valued by Teys staff.

Objectives

The project focused on seven focus areas:
1. Identification of novel value adding opportunities/processes for low value beef primals and sub-primals in the US, Australian, Asian and European markets through new R&D knowledge
2. Develop the capability of Teys Australia staff
3. Develop best-in-class cattle husbandry/handling practices to support the best quality/grading outcome for each carcase
4. Develop and validate pathways to bring cull dairy calves to the beef market
5. Validate grading tools with particular reference to Value Based Marketing
6. Support collaborative work in meat safety
7. Support re-establishment of a long-term core meat science/safety capability with an applied global market focus between Australian and US tertiary institutions (and search for potential applications with local Australian universities).

Key findings

The overall project objective to build collaborative R&D capacity for the Australian beef industry was achieved. Areas of note include:
- international R&D collaboration can be effective
- collaboration between commercial entities and research institutes supports skills development that can be broadly available to industry
- the development of a leadership development program was highly valued by Teys staff
- internship programs are an effective way to secure and upskill professional staff.

Benefits to industry

The key benefits to industry are:

• the project explored and developed a professional development process that proved highly effective and can be utilised by other businesses
• the international R&D collaboration model was shown to be effective and offers opportunities for Australian businesses
• methods to develop new products to value-add down- or un-graded beef provide opportunities for broader application.

MLA action

No further investment is planned.

Future research

Teys Australia is continuing work in a number of areas including new product, professional development, food safety and objective measurement.