Overview of MSA and the cuts based grading scheme

Abstract

Meat Standards Australia (MSA) is a Total Quality Management System aimed at delivering an accurate description of beef eating quality to the consumer. MSA has identified those Critical Control Points (CCPs) from the production, pre-slaughter, processing and value adding sectors of the beef supply chain that impact on palatability using large-scale consumer testing. These CCPs have been used to manage beef palatability in two ways. Firstly, CCPs from the pre-slaughter and processing sectors have been used as mandatory criteria for carcasses to be graded. Secondly, other CCPs from the production and processing sectors have been incorporated into a model to predict palatability for individual muscles and cooking techniques. The MSA model can be used to underpin new marketing innovations. There is now good evidence that consumers will pay more for better quality beef. There are several retail examples of where pricing is based on the MSA palatability score. This allows the value of the carcass to be calculated by summing the weights of the retail cuts multiplied by the price paid for the different quality grades. Producers are then pad on a proportion of retail value. This system allowed the economic weights associated with the different carcass traits to be calculated. As the grades were based on a continuous qualify scale, producers in this system were rewarded for small increments in quality and yield traits. The use of MSA in this fashion has underpinned a new and innovative marketing system where the pricing was transparent and allowed producers to make informed decisions to modify both quality and yield traits.