A win for producers and processors

Sheep Producers Australia supported Gundagai Meat Processors' (GMP) funding application, recognising the opportunity to turn electronic identification into more meaningful feedback for producers.

With the project now operational, Sheep Producers Australia spoke with GMP CEO Will Barton about what the investment means for sheep producers, how individual carcase tracking is working through the processing chain, and the opportunities it creates to link carcase performance back to individual animals.

Q. Five years ago, Gundagai Meat Processors began providing individual carcase feedback to producers. What prompted the business to invest in this capability?

A. It came back to a simple conviction: producers should be paid for the value they actually deliver, and they can't manage toward that value if they can't see it. For decades, lambs went over the hooks and the information that came back was averaged, delayed, or lost altogether. The producer doing exceptional work and the one who wasn't were often paid much the same. We wanted to close that gap.

The capability was built in stages. We installed a hot DEXA in 2020 as part of an MLA project, which gave us accurate lean meat yield data on every carcase. Adding the MEQ Probe meant we were measuring eating quality as well as carcase composition, so producers could be rewarded across the full set of measures rather than one part of it. With our fully automated chillers and hook tracking already in place, we could tie that data back to the individual animal and return it to the producer who bred it. Gundagai Lamb brought it all together to provide the most accurate individual carcase feedback available in the industry today.

Producers can see exactly how their decisions land, from genetics through to feed, health and management, and adjust accordingly. What gets measured and rewarded is what gets bred and managed for, and over time that lifts the quality of the lambs, the returns to the producer, and the strength of the brand they're supplying.

Q. How has linking eID data to individual carcase information changed the level of feedback available to producers?

A. Gundagai Lamb has been providing a range of carcase information, including carcase composition, IMF, animal health, and carcase weight on an individual basis for the past five years.

Linking this individual carcase information to an eID ensures that if a producer is recording information against an eID number, they can start to determine what is working on their property regarding the value of the carcase. If they are using different genetics, nutrition, or management strategies, they can now clearly see how these strategies are affecting carcase value.

This is very powerful information for producers who are currently utilising their eIDs on-farm, and a great incentive for those considering utilising their eIDs in the future.

Q. What does this project mean for the broader Australian sheep industry?

A. This project shows the broader Australian sheep industry that individual feedback paired with an eID is possible within Australian sheep abattoirs.

It also shows that this information is powerful in ensuring we, as an industry, are gaining more value along the supply chain. 

Q. What carcase information is now available for producers? How do producers use that information to make better on-farm decisions?

A. Producers currently receive hot standard carcase weight, fat score, lean meat yield, bone percentage, fat percentage, IMF percentage, carcase disease and defect information, a GLQ score (a score based on Gundagai Lamb’s own proprietary algorithm – combining IMF, lean meat yield, and animal health), and of course eID.

All this information is delivered to producers on an individual carcase basis. Producers can now start to see how their on-farm decision making from genetics, to nutrition, to general management is impacting the value of their carcases.

Q. Can you share examples of how individual carcase feedback has helped producers improve productivity, profitability or flock performance?

A. We run workshops as part of our engagement with our producers, and we see producers across different workshop groups working together, trying different strategies in genetics, nutrition, and management, and sharing the results of these trials with each other.

A great example of change driven by individual feedback came from a producer who attended one of our Zoetis animal health workshops. They had noticed that bladder worm was appearing in their feedback and was costing them due to a reduction in GLQ score.

They came to the workshop and learnt more about how to control it. They went home, put this knowledge into practice, and eliminated the issue in their subsequent consignments, improving their returns.

Q. How important is objective data in helping producers understand which animals, bloodlines or management systems are delivering the best returns?

A. Objective carcase measurement is extremely important in helping producers understand this information. The nature of subjective carcase measurement means that the information delivered to producers is not highly repeatable and can be largely inaccurate.

Making decisions on farm, based on accurate and repeatable information, means that producers can see great improvement in returns and can trust the information that they are basing decisions on.

Q. Have there been any surprising insights producers have uncovered through the system?

A. The level of information producers are receiving means that, as a brand, we are building trust through transparency. One of the greatest outcomes of the trust we are building is the conversations producers are having with us about their feedback. That comes in the form of producers trying to better understand their feedback, but it also arises when an unexpected result pops up.

We can have conversations with our producers about what could have caused the result, and they can then adjust for future consignments.

Q. What benefits has GMP seen from a processor perspective through improved traceability and individual animal tracking?

Q. From the processor's perspective, we can segregate carcases based on the objective carcase measurement that we are recording within the plant to ensure our customers are receiving consistent quality product every time.

From an eID perspective, it is still early days in providing this information to producers, but in time, we would expect to see that producers are hitting grid specification more tightly and improving the lambs that are coming through our brand even more.

Q. How does this project demonstrate the potential value of Australia's national sheep eID rollout?

A. This project shows the industry that recording eID against individual carcases in a sheep processing plant is possible, and with persistence, never saying no, and the right approach, it can be achieved.

This project has provided significant value to our producers, who are now receiving feedback they cannot get anywhere else. Producers recording information on farm against eIDs can now understand their most valuable genetic, nutritional, and management strategies.

Q. What does greater data sharing between producers and processors mean for supply chain collaboration and trust?

A. Providing information back to producers on an individual basis has generated a high level of trust through transparency between our processing plant and producers.

We work closely with our producers to understand their feedback, and they can see exactly how each of their carcases performed. They can see that a carcase that weighed less than the rest of their mob had a disease that required trimming, and that is why it weighed less. This amount of transparency is invaluable within our brand. 

Q. How could systems like this help the industry better meet market specifications and customer requirements?

A. The end goal for all brands should be to ensure that customers receive a product they want to keep purchasing.

Providing individual carcase feedback to producers and pairing this with a payment system that encourages a lamb that the consumer wants to buy ensures that producers know what to produce. This ensures that we are supplying our customers with a product they want to come back for time and time again.

Q. Looking ahead, what opportunities do you see for further innovation using eID, hook tracking and individual animal data?

A. We are currently considering how we can further support producers in gaining more value from their feedback. We have a producer portal where producers and livestock agents can log in to view their feedback and basic analytics.

We are constantly thinking about how we can improve this platform and ensure that producers gain value from their individual feedback. The next step will be thinking about how we can allow producers to incorporate on-farm information collected against an EID to bring the whole story together in an integrated way that helps drive more value.