Does Asparagopsis affect the taste of beef? Here's what the flavour chemists say

Story by Shan Goodwin © Queensland Country Life/ACM.

Cutting-edge research on flavour chemistry in beef has found no discernible taste sensory difference in the meat from cattle fed the methane inhibitor Asparagopsis.

One of Australia's leading scientists in the field, Professor Heather Smyth from the University of Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, said a tasting panel was unable to identify any differences across 26 sensory properties in the beef from cattle fed the Asparagopsis diet.

The work indicates building in the methane-reducing additive to animal diets will not damage a beef brand in terms of the flavour offering.

Prof Smyth was one of many beef research experts from UQ to provide an update of their work at a seminar called Genes, Germs, Greenhouse Gases and Gastronomy at Beef Australia in Rockhampton.

Her work underpinned the Westholme Wagyu Wheel created for the Australian Agricultural Company a few years ago to provide and extra level of information for consumers and chefs.

Since then, other companies had approached her and followed suite and it had been interesting discovering the flavour and sensory properties that differentiate one beef brand from another, she said.

"Beef deserves the sophisticated language and understanding of flavour differentiation at the premium level that wine has," she said.

The UQ seminar was one of the most packed at Beef 2024, with a swag of technical advances coming from beef researchers and PhD candidates across genomics, vaccines, beef eating quality and climate change management in the spotlight.

Dr Sarah Meale, whose research focuses on manipulating the rumen for reduced methane emissions and enhanced production spoke about the effect of nutrition and age on emissions, along with gut microbiology, production performance and meat quality.

Prof Ala Tabor, whose work focuses on animal health and agricultural biotechnology, is screening a new Australian trichomonas vaccine and her team is developing novel 'single sample' molecular diagnostic methods for trich and vibrio.

World-renowned genomics expert Professor Ben Hayes was also on hand.

He said while reducing carbon emissions across Australian agriculture was a priority for producers and a key focus of the Beef 2024 program, there were many other areas to balance to ensure profitability and sustainability.

"How do our industry partners balance these different needs in the future and invest in the right research to meet these future demands?" he asked.

"UQ recognises that investment decisions need to be balanced for beef businesses to remain profitable. Finding ways to reduce on-farm greenhouse gas emissions is incredibly important but we are also looking at the complete picture."

He said researches were doing critical work on improving fertility, pasture growth, disease management, meat quality and reducing emissions as well.

The seminar also included presentations from industry leaders including AACo's boss David Harris, Zero Net Emissions for Agriculture chief executive officer Richard Heath and Frontier Genetics chair Rebecca Burnham.

This article was first published by Farm Online and has been reproduced with permission.