Possible win-win situation for two industries

Possible win-win situation for two industries

By Janette Busch

Buying meat for dinner and then discovering after cooking it that it is tough is both disappointing and costly for the public.

Surveys have shown that while consumers' initial purchase of meat is strongly influenced by display colour and fat content, repeat buying is a result of eating characteristics such as tenderness, juiciness and flavour.

Over recent years, a Canterbury nutraceutical company and scientists from Lincoln University have worked together to find an effective, low cost method to tenderise meat before it comes to the supermarket.

Five hundred years ago the Mexican Indians wrapped their meat in paw paw leaves during cooking to make it more tender. Nowadays, enzymes from several different plant sources have been used to tenderise meat; for example, bromelain from pineapple. Although these tenderise the meat, they may cause unsatisfactory effects, such as giving the meat a mushy texture or an unusual flavour.

Worldwide there has been increasing interest in the use of waste products from the horticultural industry. One New Zealand project involves finding new uses for undersized kiwifruit discarded as waste. Through household practice and Kiwi ingenuity it became known that kiwifruit contained an enzyme (a protease) identified as actinidin that had the potential to tenderise meat.

The price differential between tender and tough cuts of meat has encouraged research at Lincoln University by Associate Professor Jim Morton and Dr Alaa El-Din Bekhit into other techniques for improving meat tenderness. Dr Bekhit now works at Otago University where he continues to carry out work on the use of actinidin in seafood and meat tenderization applications.

As a research project in Lincoln University's Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences for a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree, New Zealand women's hockey representative and Olympian Jo Galletly, a Sports Scholar at the University, investigated a commercial actinidin extract from kiwifruit in beef through injection.

This work was further developed during the masters degree project of Jin Han, who infused lamb carcasses with a solution of kiwifruit juice and confirmed it had the potential to be used as a commercial meat tenderiser. She showed that meat from infused carcasses was more tender and found that this was a result of protein breakdown. She also measured the aroma compounds in meat samples.

Dr Sue Mason, from Lincoln University, continued this work by undertaking a consumer acceptance trial with the kiwifruit-infused lamb to confirm whether the treatment had been successful in tenderising the meat and whether the infusion changed the flavour of the meat changed when cooked. The answer to both questions was positive - tender meat and no change in flavour. An important benefit of using kiwifruit juice as a meat tenderiser is that the amount of tenderisation is limited and does not lead to mushy meat.

The meat and horticultural industries are both major contributors to the New Zealand economy. At present both industries are facing competition in international markets and are looking to add value to their products.

"Using kiwifruit protease has the potential to benefit two important New Zealand industries. This alternative market for rejected fruit improves the economics of kiwifruit production while converting low value meat cuts into a tender product for the growing Asian snack food market," said Associate Professor Jim Morton.

This project is part of on-going research at Lincoln University to ensure that consumers, both here and overseas, become repeat buyers of New Zealand lamb and beef.

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