Harbour Party

Sydney Harbour lit up at night.

For our lone night in Sydney we were able to do pretty much what we wanted. Some of the group went souvenir shopping, others took in the night life and many of the K-Staters went sightseeing in the beautiful Harbour City.

The main highlight of the night was when the entire tour group went on a boat cruise across Sydney Harbour.

Photographs were prevalent for our mob of Wildcats. In fact, I took over 500 pictures while we floated about the harbour.

Maybe someday my sister will be singing here. 

I couldn't help but think of my little sister, Lydia, who is an aspiring opera singer when we cruised past the Sydney Opera House several times. Lydia is currently a vocal performance student at Oklahoma State University and she is spending her summer in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, with Opera In The Ozarks. Maybe someday I can watch her perform at this world famous venue, but until now I'll just have to share the photos with her.

On the cruise we dined on a set three-course menu. Since we are in one of the world's most highly populated area for fish I had the red snapper. I'm not a huge fan of most fish, although I love to catch them, but the red snapper was NTS (not too shabby).

We're getting excited for our final stop in Cairns.

The Harbour Bridge was another major structure in the area I enjoyed photographing because of its sheer size and relative location to the Opera House.

I think I can say without a doubt that we did not get to spend enough time in the wonderful city of Sydney. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have the opportunity to comeback in the future, but until now I'm looking forward to soaking up some sun in tropical Cairns.

Until next time, happy trails!  

Breeding Better Livestock

The theme for the past few days has been breeding better livestock, and the Australian producers we've met have been achieving this goal.

I've been on blog writing overload so I think I'll just let the pictures with some captions do the talking for me about the past day or so of tours.

Enjoy, and good on ya, mate!

Very fine Merino sheep wool from Trigger Vale.

The bottle baby at Trigger Vale.

A type of sheep race way (or alley way) in Australia.

The Rock.

This emu is strutting it's stuff for us.

The group after our dinner at the emu farm.

Darn good looking bull at Sprys Shorthorns.

Judging cattle never ends for Dr. Schaake. This yearling bull sold for $46,000 in Australia.

The group posing for a photo with the folks at Sprys Shorthorns.

Best steaks we've had thus far. Thanks for dinner Sprys Shorthorns.

Temple Running ain't easy, but somebody has got to do it.

Funny realty sign we saw on the drive to Albury.

Multi-species grazing at the commercial operation we visited: cattle, sheep and wild rabbits.

The group talking with our host about sheep and cattle production.

And the sun sets on another great day in Australia.

Thanks for taking a look. Until we meet again, happy trails!

Rinse. Lather. Repeat: Australian Meat

Day three on the Australian adventure brought with it a spell of rainstorms and learning about meat packing.

Both sheep and cattle are processed here.

We checked out of the hotel in Melbourne and made our way to the Brooklyn Abattoir, which is owned by JBS. The facility kills and processes 5,000 head of sheep and 875 head of cattle daily. JBS is the largest meat processor in Australia and the Brooklyn Abattoir is a major packing facility in the southern hemisphere.

On our tour we were able to watch all facets of the slaughter and packing process for both species of ruminants. We moved from multiple buildings and rooms throughout the facility. At each entrance and exit we had to wash/disinfect our boots and hands. This was a very important step in preventing the spread of contaminants at the abattoir.

(Warning: some slaughter practices will be explained, so if you are leery of blood and guts skip down a few paragraphs.)

Some of the K-Staters after the tour.

Something that I found interesting was the "knock box" which is used for stunning cattle and bleeding them out. The knock box is a hydraulically operated machine that restrains cattle to be stunned. After being stunned the cattle are flipped 180 degrees, upside down and the throat is cut to help bleed them out. To me it seemed like an efficient and safe process to slaughter cattle, and it offers a humane death for the animals that go through the facility.  

Marketing materials for JBS beef.

The sheep kill floor was also pretty neat to see, as this is an industry that is not as prevalent in the United States. In all it takes between 15 to 20 minutes for each sheep to go from stunning to the chill room.

Both lamb and beef carcasses are chilled for 24 hours, typically at 0 degrees Celsius before they are cut into primals like steaks and chops. After being sliced and diced into various cuts of meat everything is vacuum packed, boxed and ready to ship. It generally takes 3 to 5 days for the finished product to reach supermarkets in Australia. However, the exported product typically takes 4.5 weeks to reach its destination, which takes up more than half of the 8 week shelf life.

Marketing value added products from the Brooklyn Abattoir is something that was new to the plant just two days before our visit. Some former beef chill and boning rooms were retrofitted to handle a value added processing line that was brought in from a Tasmanian JBS plant. The value added line automatically cuts various types of meats into more consumer friendly products. During the value added process there are various labels and ingredients included with the product to help catch the consumers attention and simplify cooking.

The largest packing company in Australia is JBS.

In all it was interesting to see the similarities between the US and Australian meat packing industries, but there were some differences because of cultural taste and international marketing. Now we can look forward to our next abattoir tour in Wagga Wagga with Cargill where they specialize strictly in beef processing.

Until we meet again, happy trails!

Meet Meat Glue

Imagine another huge consumer scare happening to the beef industry that could equal if not surpass lean finely textured beef (LFTB) or "pink slime." 

Well "meat glue" is a relatively new issue in the media to American consumers, but Australians have been dealing with this problem for at least a full year as the following news story outlines:

The meat glue debate popped up in the news recently in Pittsburgh when this story was ran on the evening news.

Here is some transglutaminase in it's packaged form.

Since the story in Pittsburgh got out it has hit mainstream websites like Yahoo! and a similar story was reported in San Francisco which was picked up by the Huffington Post.

The proper name for "meat glue" is transglutaminase, which is a naturally occurring enzyme derived from animal blood. Transglutaminase is used to bind small cuts of meat to make a larger, more expensive cut of meat that resembles typical primal cuts.

While there are health concerns from commingling meat that has potentially been exposed to harmful bacteria, the risk is minimal if the meat is cooked to the appropriate temperature. 

Filet mignon is popular at restaurants, but for how much longer?

The larger concern for the meat industries in the United States and Australia is calling a cut of meat something it is not. Restaurants are making fraudulent claims by calling stew meats that could be cut from many parts of a carcass a filet mignon.

This practice does add value to smaller cuts of filet mignon, but is the monetary value gained worth the black eye it could cause for the meat and restaurant industries? 

You can bet this is not the last you will hear about this story and hopefully this does not become another public relations nightmare like LFTB.

Until next time, happy trails!