Different cuts of Goat meat
Our attitude to goat meat is, in fact, in our minds, not in our mouths. Goat meat is as good as any other meat, and like other meats its quality depends on how the animal was reared, its age, how it was slaughtered, and how the meat was subsequently handled, and of course how it was cooked.
There is some confusion about the name by which goat meat should be known. `Chevon’ is a name that was developed in South Africa to refer to meat from Angora goats, which sells there at similar prices to pork, veal and beef. Chevon is not a name that is widely known here however (at times it even reaches the printed page as `chevron’).
But the simple term ‘goat meat’ is hardly one suited to modern marketing and promotion methods. The opportunity would seem to exist for some authority, such as the Goat Council, in association with the Australians, to come up with a suitable name for the farm-bred, quality-controlled product, which would create the right image in overseas markets.
Very little research has been conducted into the characteristics of goat meat, but a few basic facts are beginning to emerge. One consumer test in this country, for instance, revealed that the taste-panel members found no adverse flavours, but did consider the meat somewhat tougher than other meats.
However, overseas research has shown that this lack of tenderness results from rapid chilling, which has an adverse effect on a carcass with a poor fat cover, as is the case with goats. Chilling or freezing systems designed specifically for goat meat, plus electric stimulation, may well produce a quite different result.
However, we should not regard quality as something to be decided by ourselves. We, for instance, regard ‘tenderness’ as highly important, but some of our potential customers consider `chewability’ of great importance. We need, therefore, to undertake market research in order to establish just what sort of quality standards we should be aiming for.
Goat Meat sign
Exports of goat meat to date have been from feral goats shot in the wild — with all that that implies — and processed through Game Packing Houses, or feral goats mustered off the hills and put through freezing works when these would otherwise be idle.
The goat meat we have exported to date has been mainly in carcass form, and no differentiation has been made for age or sex or condition. It is simply goat meat. And it is apparent that in several of the markets to which we export, the product is thoroughly disguised during the cooking with curry and other flavourings.
However, feral goats became too valuable as farm livestock to be slaughtered so casually. Does can be mated to bucks which will produce progeny with improved fibre production potential. Even bucks not required for mating — and few ferals will be — have a value in controlling weeds and re-growth on hill country farms.
The markets exist; that seems apparent. And while a high proportion of societies that consume goat meat may be too poor to pay the sort of price which would make exports worthwhile in this country, there are some whose standard of living has improved dramatically in recent years.
The Middle East is a case in point, and there are reasonably well-to-do people in the Pacific Basin countries, the Caribbean, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore, who have a real preference for goat meat and have been paying higher prices than for lamb. If a meat industry is to develop which is able to take advantage of the market potential which exists, a number of developments need to take place.
Access to efficient slaughter facilities, in all the major areas of goat farming, is necessary, and it should be possible to slaughter at times of the year dictated by good management and market require-ments. At present few facilities will kill goats year-round; instead they use goats to fill gaps in their killing programme. The result is that management of meat goats at present tends to be designed to have goats ready for slaughter when works will take them, rather than when pasture growth and other factors determine optimum slaughter weights. An improvement in returns to farmers is also necessary.
It is possible that this came about because lightweight lean lambs were being off-loaded in the markets to which we currently sell goat meat, but it is also apparent that the marketing of goat meat has been conducted rather casually; in fact ‘marketing’ is too grand a term for what is really nothing more than `trading’.
Goat used for meat
This is an improvement, but the industry will also need a degree of stability in prices. Such developments can hardly be expected, however, while there is no continuity of supply, no quality control and no promotional effort.
The industry faces a further problem in having feral goat meat (from wild goats shot in the hills), which is processed through Game Packing Houses at lower cost than export slaughter works can achieve, competing with the farmed pro-duct on the same markets. Several of our markets do not differentiate between the two products.
The goat meat industry might well learn from the experience of the deer farming industry, which also has to market its farmed product (slaughtered in special, costly, Deer Slaughter Premises) in competition with venison from deer shot in the wild and processed in Game
Packing Houses. Their experience suggests that the goat meat industry will need to identify those markets that want, and will pay a premium for, a product that we can show to be superior to goat meat from the bush, and which has been slaughtered and processed under the highest possible conditions of quality control.
It is also obvious that if the quantity of goat meat available for export increases substantially, market development to create outlets at good prices is essential and urgent. If meat exporters do not con¬sider it worthwhile to undertake this investment in the future of the goat meat industry, producers themselves may well have to pool resources and undertake the work.
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