Meat Preservation Technologies in Kenya’s Pastoral Areas with
Potential for Market Competitiveness Improvement
Josphat Gichure, Catherine Kunyanga, Pius Mathi and Jasper Imungi
Conference on Policies for Competitive Smallholder Livestock ProductionGaborone, Botswana, 4-6 March 2015
• The average worldwide losses and waste peryear along the meat value chain estimated at≈20 % (Parfitt et al., 2010).
• Low-income countries experience greatestlosses (Parfitt et al., 2010; Cederberg et al.,2011) - caused by:
– underutilization of edible by-products,
– inappropriate post-harvest handling
– inappropriate preservation technologies
Introduction
≥ 40%
Introduction cont…
Kenyan case:
• Approx 67 % of red meat is from pastoralproduction systems (IPAR, 2004).
• Post-harvest losses in pastoral areas are causedby poor handling, processing and preservationtechnologies
– Problem: these technologies not standardized andno attempts have been made to mainstream intoformal markets (Gichure et al., 2014).
Introduction cont…
• Preservation of pastoral meat generally
through reduction of water activity (Gichure et
al., 2014)
– main techniques: sun-drying‚ deep-frying and
salting of whole-muscle tissues.
– proteolysis, lipolysis, oxidation and microbial
spoilage main cause of spoilage of pastoral meat
products (Zhou et al., 2010)
Introduction cont…
• What is a competitive product???
• One with ability to sustainably gain &maintain market share
– Market share and competitiveness depends onconsumers’ perceived quality cues based on needsand expectations
– Quality cues for meat products include appearance,freshness and safety, taste, amount of visible fat/oil, texture, tenderness and convenience andperceived quality
Introduction cont…
• Market competitiveness of food product alsobased on competitive potential, performancemeasure and competitive process;
– Performance measure depends on how well theproducts are positioned relative to competing products
– Competitive potential depends on availability andquantity of inputs, cost of raw materials andproductivity
– Competitive process measures degree by whichcompetitive potential is converted into competitiveperformance.
Research objective
• This research seeks to improve meat preservationtechnologies in pastoral area to enhancecompetitiveness of selected local products
• Specifically,
To identify the most consumed pastoral meat products
To assess the technologies used to preserve pastoralmeat
To establish the most competitive products based oncompetitive potential, performance measure andquality cues
Justification
• Rapid urbanization in Africa has increased
demand for “indigenous” processed meat in
the urban centers.
• Need for improvement design of the most
promising “local” preservation technologies
based on their market competitiveness.
• Technologies need be standardized for quality
equivalence.
Pastoral condition: high temperature ~30-40°C, low humidity
Study area
• Focus group discussion and observations used to collectdata
• Each FGD had between 8 to 12 participants of eithergender
• Each group provided with 3 kilograms of hind limbmutton steak purchased from local slaughterhouse andwere required to preserve it based on indigenousmethods.
• Final products evaluated for potential competitivenessusing 5-pont hedonic scale where 5 = good‚ 4 =slightly good‚ 3 = neither good nor bad‚ 2 = slightlybad while 1 = bad.
• Comparisons of products made using corned beef andbeef biltong
Study design and methodology
cont…
Results and discussion
Results and discussion cont…
Results and discussion cont…
Key: - reps Never, -/+ reps At times or rarely, + reps Always
Results and discussion cont…
Results and discussion cont…
Competitiveness of pastoral meat products
High scores for appearance‚ flavor‚ availability and cost ofraw materials and shelf-life of final products.
Low scores for convenience‚ texture and marketperformance
Higher scores for flavor attributed to use of spices and useof ghee in nyirinyiri and smoke in enyas- spices and smokehas inhibitory effect to microbial spoilage and chemicaloxidation of products
Smoke also used to sanitize packaging containers
Products are cooled to solidify the deep-frying fat/ oil overmeat thereby creating anaerobic conditions- this prolongedshelf-life. Challenge: products become inconvenient to useand predispose products to oxidation
Results and discussion cont…
vs vs
How do we improve convenience?
Conclusion and recommendation
• Competitiveness would be increased ifpreservation processes are standardized andupgraded.
• Increased competitiveness would introduce theproducts into formal markets in urban areas
• On basis of technology used; deep-frying‚ drip-drying‚ cooling products over deep frying oil anduse of spices/ smoke have the greatest potential.
• Further studies should be focused on upgradingthese processes for incorporation into the formalmeat value chan.
would wish to Acknowledge
• German Ministry of Education and Research through
RELOAD project
• The entire RELOAD team in E. Africa and Germany
• ILRI