Factors influencing the occurrence of high ultimate pH in three muscles of lamb carcasses in Australia

Abstract

Chilled lamb meat exported from Australia has, on occasions, been rejected by importing countries due to greening, after only 6 weeks of storage time. Greening is known to be more prevalent in high ultimate pH (pHu) beef meat (>5.9). There are few data available for lamb carcasses in Australia on the occurrence of high pHu meat, which may have an impact on the understanding and control of quality and greening during storage. The aim of this project was to determine the prevalence of, and influencing factors for, high pHu meat in a range of muscle types in lamb carcasses in Australia. Muscle pHu data were collected from a total of 1614 carcasses from 78 lots at four lamb processing plants in ..