Eating Quality

Eating Quality

Tattykeel regularly tested the eating quality of the Australian White Sheep during the years of its development and have been aware that it ate better than other lamb. In 2016, in order to establish proof of this and identify why the meat was so different Tattykeel engaged Associate Professor Aduli Malau-Aduli, Phd, MSc, BSc Hons, to commence their initial research. The tests revealed that the meat of the Tattykeel line of Australian Whites had natural marbling, a lower melting point than other sheep breeds and was a source of Omega-3. In his Testimonial 1st June 2018, Assoc Prof Aduli commented:

“In my 27+ years of research in fatty acid metabolism and meat eating quality, I have not seen a sheep breed with such low melting point of fats (28-35°C) and high levels of EPA and DHA ω-3 LC-PUFA that surpassed the ‘source’ levels of 30mg/100g of tissue (the top 10 rams being outstanding (40-70mg/100g of tissue) and the top ewe at 52.2mg/100g. In terms of intramuscular fat content, the average is 4.42% in the ewes. These figures are all without any form of nutritional supplementation. The meat simply melts in the mouth with unsurpassed juiciness and tenderness like no other lamb.”

In May 2020, after 4 years of extensive research on the genetic properties of the Tattykeel Australian White sheep and their unique eating quality, the James Cook University’s Animal Genetics and Nutrition team headed by Associate Professor Aduli, have taken the guess work out of eating quality and published the first of several peer reviewed papers outlining their findings in “Genes” an open access journal.

Following on from the publication of the first peer reviewed paper in “Genes“, The Land newspaper published an article “Melting Moment” about our research in their Australian Sheep Breeder’s Compendium.

Based on the exceptional eating quality of Tattykeel Australian White lamb, we are extremely excited about the launch of our premium lamb brand Margra Lamb. Margra is currently available in the USA and will soon be launched in Australia.

Research on the Tattykeel Australian White is still continuing and DNA markers are being identified so that these attributes can be more easily identified in the future.

In July 2018, Tattykeel sponsored “Lambition” at the Australian Sheep & Wool Show in Bendigo. Tattykeel Australian White lamb featured at the gala dinner with various meat cuts show cased. The meal was a huge success!

The Executive Chef that catered for the 257 guests was Mynette Richardson, and in an article published by The Land she states:

“In my 32 years of being a chef, I’ve never seen lamb cook or eat as well as it did with the Australian White at Lambition. This breed surpasses all the rest in terms of eating quality, and just how easy it is to use.”