Hard work set to be honoured at awards
SOME of Australia’s top beef producers will be recognised for their hard work, dedication and quality produce through the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) Excellence in Eating Quality Awards, to be held nationally throughout September and October.
The awards recognise producers who have achieved outstanding compliance rates to the MSA specifications, as well as high eating quality performance, as represented by MSA Index results for cattle MSA graded during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 financial years.
Under the awards, a Most Outstanding Feedlot and Most Outstanding Non-Feedlot MSA producer will be crowned in each state.
One producer from each state will also win the inaugural MSA Excellence in Eating Quality Progress Award for showing the greatest improvement in their MSA results since the 2014-15 financial year.
The awards events, to be held in each state across the country, will also include a What Makes the Perfect MSA Index forum. Producers are invited to come along and hear the latest developments in the MSA program and research, focused on areas that will help improve carcase compliance and eating quality performance including topics such as benchmarking, genetics and nutrition.
The forums will also provide producers with the opportunity to hear about broader issues in the red meat industry, including updates on changes to strengthen the Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) program and information on the value of big data across the industry, including the latest information on the rollout of DEXA objective measurement technology.
MSA was developed by the Australian red meat industry to improve eating quality consistency.
MSA program manager Sarah Strachan said this year’s forums and awards built on the inaugural events held in 2016, which were enthusiastically attended by producers across the country.
“We know how hard the majority of producers work to produce a quality product that meets the strict MSA criteria. These awards are about acknowledging that hard work,” Ms Strachan said.