Meat message to America: Over the Hooks with Steve Martyn

Most game-changing technology, however, can take years of effort and cost to bring to the table and even then fails to achieve any commercial adoption. An additional challenge can be when the government is involved.

Such has been the challenge for the Meat Messaging System.

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Processors and exporters face many complex drivers for product traceability. The Meat Messaging System designed and developed in Australia has been a game changer in delivering next generation traceability to the Australian meat industry.

The Meat Importers Council of America, the North American Meat Institute and Meat & Livestock Australia have recently been running industry webinars in the US on the Meat Messaging System.

A number of presentations will also be made at the MICA Conference in Chicago, October 24 to 27, not only to those involved in the North American import meat supply chain but also to a range of representatives from South and Central American and European suppliers in the room.

This technology didn't just happen. It represents almost two decades of development and implementation from the first trial shipment to the US from Australia Meat Holdings in 2002.

Just as important as the technology itself has been the task of convincing Australian exporters and US importers of its commercial value.

In addition it has also involved convincing both the Australian regulator, the Australian Department of Agriculture as well as the US regulator, the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service of the cost savings, reliability, confidentiality and efficiencies of the system for all who participate.

Des Bowler, managing director of Management for Technology Pty Ltd in Brisbane has been at the centre of this development from concept to implementation. He was present at that first trial in 2002 and made the presentation and oversaw the trial of the system at the 2016 MICA Conference in San Francisco that I attended. He will do the same again at this year's MICA Conference and AGM in Chicago in October but now with commercial momentum and a proven track record.

The Meat Messaging system allows the participating export establishment to send a Meat Message to the Meat Message portal for every shipment that leaves that establishment.

The program holds the meat consignment information in a secure standards based industry cloud portal, the same information that can be assessed on each carton.

The portal can then be accessed by supply chain participants as well as the Australian and US regulatory authorities to determine the authenticity , verification and traceability of the meat products in the consignment.

The system is administered by AUS-MEAT and uses the bar code technology that appears on all cartons that meets the GS1 barcoding standards and GSI EANCOM electronic message standards. Export processing facilities must be registered with Meat Messaging to access the system.

Meat Messaging has offered exporters significant benefits, the most immediate being the ability to remark cartons in the US with damaged or missing shipping marks which allows the lot to move as a unit and not have affected cartons separated.

If anyone has seen the very physical job of stamping every carton individually with shipping marks as a consignment is loaded out of a cold store in Australia, you can appreciate why some cartons get missed inadvertently or the shipping mark is smudged or only partially applied.

When shipping marks were missing or damaged in the past it required an Australian Government official in the US to visit the warehouse and guarantee that the cartons so affected were a genuine part of the shipment. Austrade provided this service for a while as did MLA.

The costs were often significant and on many occasions the product affected was simply destroyed. The ability to remark in the US warehouse in real time that is afforded by Meat Messaging, without any further inspection has been a significant cost saver.

The system has been used for remarking now for at least five years in the US.

Product rejections of Australian meat have fallen 50pc over the 2018- 2021 period. Everyone in the supply chain from the export establishment, the exporter, import inspection warehouse, meat buyer, importer and end-user can use it when registered.

When fully implemented, time taken at loadout related to manual paper recording for export loads has almost vanished.

Meat Messaging is not compulsory and sells itself on its ability to deliver recognisable benefits. There are now over 240 establishments registered to use Meat Messaging including 42 Australian meat export establishments that are consistently uploading messages.

At the 2016 MICA presentations, that figure was less than 20.

The system had the US market as its initial focus but has obvious benefits for all global players.

Last week Des Bowler presented to the AMPC Conference in Victoria on the ability to take any single carton found anywhere in the world using Meat Messaging and be able to identify not only date and time of production but the Property Identification Codes of the livestock that were being processed when that carton was packed.

Former AMH CEO Keith Lawsen used to say "traceability like food safety is taken as a given. If you don't have it you will be discounted."

The Australian Department of Agriculture has recently been holding workshops to assist Australian processors and exporters with the upcoming renewal process to maintain registration in the China Imported Food Enterprise Registration system, a system created under China's Decree 248, implemented in January this year.

Closer to home, Australian weekly cattle slaughter continues to ease with the widespread rainfall, falling to just over 83,000 head in the last week. With high rainfall weather patterns expected to continue through November and beyond, it may be the new processing year after the Christmas break before we see any return to normal seasonal conditions.

Analyst Aginfo reports US beef import demand is continuing to weaken along with US import prices and it is only the weak Australian dollar that is cushioning otherwise ongoing negative meat processing cut out values in Australia.