WELCOME to the fortnightly series of articles focusing on red meat R&D, presented by Beef Central and the Australian Meat Processor Corporation. These items highlight a range of projects designed to enhance the efficiency, productivity, product quality and safety of Australian red meat sold into the domestic market and around the world.

All have the ability to help underpin Australia’s unrivalled reputation as the world’s premier export of quality beef, lamb and offal. Links to previous articles in the series appear at the bottom of this page.

The Australian Meat Processor Corporation has partnered with technology company Bondi Labs to secure government funding for a trial of 5G-enabled technology to improve the quality assurance process of meat production.

The funding, from the Commonwealth government’s 5G Innovation Initiative, will:

• Implement streaming of high-definition video data from meat processing plants for use by on-plant vets and food safety meat assessors
• Augment human decision making based on video stream data, using edge computing as well as artificial intelligence-enabled machine vision analysis of meat production

The 12-month project begins this month, and will be trialled in AMPC member meat processing plants across Victoria and Queensland.

Inspectors record aniumal health data from offals on a touch-screen at the Teys Beenleigh abattoir

AMPC chief executive Chris Taylor said limited connectivity in rural and regional Australia was a major challenge for processors.

“Our industry is enthusiastic about embracing technological innovations, and a stable and high-bandwidth internet connection is critical for that,” he said.

This project which will demonstrate whether 5G will be a viable technology for delivering internet connectivity to regional meat processing plants. The project will look at delivering high-speed internet to enable smart verification technologies such as high-fidelity video streaming that can be used for remote auditing and compliance monitoring through computer vision technology.

“Our goal is to reduce the cost of compliance and at the same time increase the effectiveness of compliance auditing for our members in regional and rural Australia.”

AMPC program manager Matt O’Bryan said the project would help on-site vets through the provision of technologies that will be able to augment their tasks and decision making, adding value to outputs of their roles, and in turn better outcomes for our members.

“Food safety auditors will benefit with the edition of new tools for verification that will reduce the regulatory burden for processors,” he said.

Previous articles in this series:

• New product academy to see processors get the most out of each carcase
• Shadow robot technology mimics human actions
• Frenched lamb – no knives, no water 
• Could a futuristic exo-skeleton create new opportunity in the meat sector?
• Red Meat R&D: Upping our game in processing efficiency
• Magnetic conveying could leverage high-speed train technology for beef