Introduction

The 1990’s proved to be a decade of enlightenment for the international pork industry. The major pork producing countries began to take their consumers opinions seriously and began to investigate the claims that pork rarely lived up to consumer expectations in terms of eating quality consistency.

Slowly the picture emerged that as the industry had endeavoured to produce leaner pigs to accommodate consumer concerns regarding fat content, they had inadvertently selected animals that carried a “stress” gene. The genetic predisposition of the animals, plus the stress imparted during production, transport and slaughter, led to a product that lost its water holding capacity. As will be discussed in this document, this has led to a number of significant problems for all parts of the industry but for the consumer it meant that pork could be succulent for one meal, and dry and tough for the next.

New Zealand Pork (NZP) was involved in this emerging issue and set about understanding the issues in the New Zealand context. As a clear picture emerged a set of standards was published that would enable all members of the value chain to minimise the problem but few were innovative or visionary enough to take up the challenge. In New Zealand pork continues to be marketed as a commodity with prices rising and falling along with the export schedules for beef and lamb.

While several producers did take up the challenge to produce a consistently better product, only one carried the approach right across the value chain – Murrellen Pork.

This document reviews the factors that led to the identification of the issues that confront the New Zealand Pork Industry and describes the Murrellen response to those issues in the form of the Murrellen Quality System. This system remains compliant to the NZP Pork Quality Improvement Process (PQIP) on-farm standard but in truth surpasses it.

Murrellen Pork can today offer its clients top quality pork with a guaranteed consistency of eating quality backed by objective scientific measurement of every carcass produced, a unique position within the local industry.