This invention relates to a method of and apparatus for evaluating the meat characteristics of animals. In particular it relates to a method and apparatus for evaluating meat tenderness.

It has been found that the actual yield of meat after slaughter varies quite widely from animal to animal, as does the quality of the meat, making the value of a carcass quite unpredictable. There is, therefore, a need for a method of predicting meat quality prior to sale and slaughter of an animal.

Similarly, the physical performance characteristics of animals for selective breeding purposes can not be determined analytically and thus selection is determined by persons who have long experience and expertise in the relevant fields. When purchasing an animal, a breeder or grower may consider the records of the animals sire and dam, and then speculates as to whether the animal has inherited its parents' desirable qualities. Although there is ultrasound technology available to read back-fat and rib-eye area, the non ultrasound methods are not efficient and do not provide predictable results. Furthermore they are available only to those who have gained the necessary skills and knowledge. Various testing methods for predicting carcass quality prior to slaughter have been developed, however most of these methods are at best speculative and at worst inaccurate. Most such methods rely upon subjective analysis of physical characteristics of an animal carried out in an intuitive rather than scientific manner. Of course accurate and non- destructive methods of determining back fat, rib-eye area and total fat have been developed but these are not able to predict the tenderness of meat from a slaughtered animal, either before or after slaughter with any significant degree of accuracy. Unfortunately it has been found that meat tenderness varies unpredictably and can differ between tender

and tough for meat samples which provide identical results in available tests for characteristics such as marbling, total fat and fat/lean ratio.

The present invention aims to alleviate one or more of the above disadvantages and to provide a method of and apparatus for evaluating the meat characteristics of animals, which will be reliable and efficient in use.

With the foregoing in view, this invention in one aspect resides broadly in a method of evaluating a meat characteristic in an animal or carcass, including:- obtaining an ultrasound image of a selected portion of the animal or carcass; subjecting the ultrasound image to a structured analysis directed to a characteristic determined to be indicative of the characteristic being sought, and interpreting the analysis to provide a measure of the characteristic.

The meat characteristic is preferably tenderness but it may be marbling for example. The ultrasound image is preferably a visible image but it may be an electronic image. The image may be obtained in any suitable manner such as by having an ultrasound scanner set in a crush for obtaining an image during passage of a beast through the crush, whilst the beast is stationary if necessary. Preferably however the ultrasound scanner is a hand held scanner positioned directly against the beast using a conducting fluid between the scanner edge and the beast. For testing tenderness, the scanner is positioned so as to monitor a muscle portion of the beast. The muscle portion monitored may be a prime cut muscle such as a ribeye muscle, monitored between the 12th and 13th ribs, or others as desired. Preferably however the muscle portion monitored for determining the tenderness of a prime cut is the splenius muscle and the semi-spindis capitis muscle located in the neck of the beast and hereinafter referred to as the neck muscle.

The ultrasound analysis may be performed on processed

meat, on a hot or cold carcass or it may be performed non- invasively on a live animal. The animal tested according to the method may be any suitable animal. Particularly suitable animals include cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, game and fowl. The invention may be utilised for selecting animals for slaughter but it may also be applied as a diagnostic technique for animals for breeding or other purposes, including domestic animals. To perform an analysis an ultrasound scanner is held against a beast which is preferably restrained in a crush for the duration of the ultrasound imaging. Alternatively the animals to be tested may be fed along a crush and the scanner held against the beast as it moves along the crush. Preferably however the scanner is held against the neck of a beast immobilised in a head crush for the duration of the ultrasound imaging. In a preferred form, the analysis performed on the ultrasound image is a multivariant analysis but a greyscale or image density analysis may be useful for less accurate analysis if desired. Image pattern analysis may also be used and particularly image pattern analysis able to differentiate between the coarseness or texture variants of the image may also be used. In addition a visual analysis of the ultrasound image by a trained eye may be utilised if desired. In one embodiment of the invention the structured analysis is chosen so as to be representative of the amount of and/or arrangement of fibrous protein in the muscle. For this purpose edge recognition algorithms may be used in or as the structured analysis to identify the boundaries created by the fibrous protein as it is believed that there is a relationship between fibrous protein and meat tenderness, such that an animal with a high amount of fibrous protein has tough meat, and an animal with a low amount of fibrous protein has tender meat.

According to a another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of assessing the health, physical performance and/or meat characteristics of an animal

comprising:

(a) using visual imaging apparatus to obtain one or more images of one or more parts of the animal;

(b) examining the image or images so obtained to identify certain predetermined features of visual appearance of the animal;

(c) analysing the features for shape and/or size and/or feature,

(d) comparing the analysis with similar analysis derived for animals of the same type having known health, physical performance and/or meat characteristics in order to find the closest match; and

(e) classifying the health, physical performance and/or meat characteristics of the animal as the same as the matched animal.

The visual imaging apparatus may be any suitable apparatus for obtaining a visual image. In one embodiment, it may be a camera producing a standard photograph, with the subsequent steps of examining, analysing, comparing and classifying being performed visually and manually. However it is preferred that the apparatus be computer image capture apparatus, producing a digital image which may be subsequently examined, analysed, compared and classified using computer operations. Where digital image processing is used, it is preferred that the steps of examining the image incorporate edge recognition and pattern recognition computer techniques. The features considered in the analysing step may be any suitable features. If desired the methods of the present invention may be used in conjunction with other methods as hereinafter described.

In yet a further aspect, this invention resides broadly in apparatus for carrying out any one of the methods defined above.

In order that this invention may be more readily

understood and put into practical effect reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings and examples which are illustrative of the invention, and wherein:-

Fig. 1 is a diagrammatic overview of apparatus for use in conjunction with the different aspect of the invention:

Fig. 2 is a table showing the Warner Bratzler shear test results for the neck muscle of eight Angus steers;

Figs. 3a to 3h are ultrasound images of the neck muscle of the eight Angus steers;

Fig. 4 is a table showing the Warner Bratzler shear test results for the neck muscle of three Brahman steers;

Figs. 5a to 5c are ultra sound images of the neck muscle of the three Brahman steers; Fig. 6 is a tenderness analysis of ultrasonic images of the neck muscles of fifty-five cattle;

Fig. 7 is a tenderness analysis of ultrasonic images of the neck muscle of thirty-four pigs.

As illustrated in Fig. 1, analysing a beast includes a first simple step of restraining a beast 10 in such manner that the neck may be substantially immobilised to enable an imaging head 20 to be supported against the beast to obtain an ultrasound image of the neck muscle.

The imaging head 20 provides an electronic signal characteristic of the neck muscle to the ultrasound apparatus which may be processed by computer 14 to provide an image which may be analysed according to known image processing techniques such as edge recognition and/or pattern recognition and/or greyscale analysis, or fuzzy processing. By the use of such techniques, an operator is able to select a technique, verified by experimentation, to identify a selected characteristic in the beast.

By the use of such techniques the computer is able to identify certain predetermined features in the muscle which after analysis provide a measure of tenderness. The computer 14 preferably has access to a database having information of

this nature and the muscle may therefore be examined and compared with known data in order to provide all such information as the muscle may reveal about the health, physical performance and/or meat characteristics of the animal.

The present invention may be put into effect by using conventional ultrasound imaging apparatus to provide a hard image of the cross-section of the muscle to be examined and by using conventional optical recognition devices to scan the hard image and existing analytical techniques to provide the selected analysis of the scanned image, however it is preferred that visual imaging apparatus 13 have digital image capturing capabilities, producing a digital image which may subsequently be processed by computer 14. In a first example of the performance of the invention, the beef neck muscles of fifty-five cattle including three different breeds were imaged using ultrasound imaging head 20 and ultrasound apparatus 19. The ultrasound apparatus 19 is a ALOKA 500 real time ultrasound unit. The images were mathematically analysed for tenderness by computer 14 using discriminant analysis for the total sample and also for the three samples grouped according to breed. The results were compared with the Warner Bratzler shear values obtained after slaughter and show that 80% of the time the method correctly identified the cattle into three groups of tender, medium and tough meat on raw data (see Fig. 6).

In a second example of the performance of the invention, the neck muscles of 34 pigs were imaged using ultrasound apparatus 20. The images were mathematically analysed for tenderness by computer 14 using discriminant analysis. The results were compared with the warner Bratzler shear values obtained after slaughter and show that 79% of the time the method correctly identified the pigs into three groups of tender, medium and tough meat, (see Fig. 7). It is believed that the imperfect correlation between the Warner

Bratzler shear test and the image tenderness analysis may be

due to the inaccuracy of the Warner Bratzler shear test which is acknowledged to be imprecise for a significant number of cases, and the quality of the ultrasound image.

The ultrasound technique of this invention may be used in association with iridology analysis which may utilise imaging cameras linked to the computer in conjunction with the imaging head and the program may integrate both results to achieve a more accurate assessment. For this purpose results for predicting the required characteristic may be compared and discards where tolerance limits are exceeded.

It has been found that the amount of fibrous protein can be determined from an ultrasound scan and that the measure of the fibrous protein is substantially inversely proportional to the tenderness of the animal's meat. It will be seen from the foregoing that the present invention is particularly suitable for providing a method of grading animal meat for tenderness before slaughter (which can also be used after slaughter), allowing a truer valuation of livestock to be made. This invention may also provide a method of assessing the health of an animal and diagnosing particular ailments. The invention may further provide a convenient non-invasive method of assessing an animal's physical performance characteristics.

It is to be understood that various alterations, additions and/or modifications may be made to the parts and methods previously described without departing from the ambit of the invention as is defined in the appended claims.