About Darren Scahill Expertise I can answer questions about Home Butchering, Slaughtering, smallgoods, Meat Inspection, Food animal biology, Hygiene and sanitation for the meat industry, microbiology, food spoilage, general butchering and other meat industry related matters including haccp.
I cannot answer questions about fermented smallgoods.
Experience 20 years butchering, Qualified Meat Inspector
Question Hi, a friend and I were eating some Thai food earlier and somehow we stumbled on to this question, and I figure that this was probably the best site to turn to for a question like this (or any other). Anyways, it's question time...
out of the average weight of a cow(which i would also like to know), how much of that meat may be used and is edible. Also, if possible what is the likelihood of that meat(from that paticular "average" cow) would actually be used in say the average supermarket to the average butcher. Thank you for your assistance.
p.s. if for some reason you are unable to retain an answer then i would definetely be interested in a reference to another source where i could obtain this information. thank you in your aid.
Answer Hi Ryan
If a cow weighs 400kg, then after slaughter the carcass will be about 200kg then when it goes to the butcher it looses about one third in fat and bone. So a 400kg liveweight animal should give you about 140kg of edible meat.
Now the butcher buys the whole carcass, so if he paid $600 for the carcass and he only sells 140kg of that 200kg carcass then he instantly loses $200 worth of product value.
This is why meat prices vary for different cuts.
The bones bring very little return and the fat from the butcher is usually given away to be used for blood and bone fertilizer.
Back at the Abattior, everything is utilised (even the blood in pigs sometimes for black pudding), the abattoir keep everything they have a market for like the hide, kidneys, liver etc, everything else including the head and stomach contents is used for petfood, cosmetics like lipstick, jelly and fetilizer.
The abattoir make their money by utilizing these other products.
The average weight of a cow, steer or bull will vary with breed, age, conformation and meat to bone rario.
The heaviest animal I have processed dressed out (carcass weight)was 340kg, so thats about 700kg liveweight.
I have process a bull over 1000kg liveweight for pet food.
If you want any more info please ask another question, I hope this answer was what you wanted.
Darren
