Processing

Nothing new in Tenderstretch, says industry pioneer

Jon Condon, 10/02/2012

 

One of the pioneers of the tenderstretch carcase hanging method now being adopted more widely across the beef industry says there is ‘nothing new’ in the technique, but such worthwhile processes were often ’15 years in gestation.’

The Nolan family have been outliers, if not almost unique, in the Australian processing landscape in employing tenderstretch systems in their Nolans Meats abattoir near Gympie for at least the past 20 years.

Slowly, other domestic market-oriented processors in a number of states are adopting the meat quality-improving hanging method, or giving it serious scrutiny.

The immediate past president of the Australian Meat Industry Council, Terry Nolan said traditionally, the meat industry was slow to take up change, or different ways of doing things.

“We see lots of industry processes or systems that take 12 or 15 years to gain momentum. Meat Standards Australia is a classic example,” he said.

Likewise, tenderstretch had been out there for 30 years, and in some cases original users abandoned the system when weighing-up the pros and cons, because of issues like chiller space utilisation and perceived boning ease.

“But with greater emphasis today on eating quality, and incentives through MSA boning group results, some processors are again looking at the process,” Mr Nolan said.

“It doesn’t matter whether its NVDs, NLIS or tenderstretch – all these systems have had very, very long gestation periods.”  

  • Stay tuned for an important Nolan Meats commercial announcement on Beef Central in an upload at 1pm this afternoon.
     

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