BLOOM ON LAMB

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 314, 30 August 1932, Page 3

BLOOM ON LAMB

EXPERTS INVESTIGATE TO ENSURE THAT IT IS RETAINED PRICES AFFECTED The Food Investigation Special Report No. 41 on "The Freezing, Storage and Transport of New Zealand Lamb," issued by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, was published by H. M. Stationery Office, London on July 18. "The problem," says Sir William Hardy in a prefatory note, "was to ascertain, how far the conditions of freezing storage and transport of New Zealand mutton and lamb could be modified so as to improve its 'bloom' and general quality. But what is bloom? It is a definite commercial asset which affects price, even if it has little relation to value. It is also one of those vague but real qualities, like the percussion note of a tin of lobster, the feel of a razor-edge, or the note of a locomotiv-e wheel, which the expsrt can recognise and assess, hut cannot define. It is described in the report as 'the freshly killed appearanco of Ihe meat,' and the object of the survey was to discover those factors in the long handling of the carcases, and even in conditions on the farm, which tend either to enhance or impair their appearance — that is to preserve or to destroy bloom." The problem was brought to the notice of the Department's Food Investigation Board by the Meat Producers' Board of New Zealand, to whom its solution is of considerable financial importance, since meat with good bloom commands £d per pound more on the average than meat with inferior bloom. The loss of bloom is also closely related to loss of weight by evaporation of water from the carcase or by sweating during storage. It is calculated that a reduction of the present loss in weight suffered during transport . by one quarter would result in a gatn. of £100,000 to the industry in a normal season. The general conclusion reached in the report is that although there is no need of radical alterations of technique in the storage and transport of the lamb, improvements at each stage of the chain of treatment are possible.