Introduction

Historically, sales of exotic meatshave been limited only by supply. As sup-ply has increased in recent years, nationaland international exotic game markets havegrown rapidly. In the United States, growthhas occurred primarily in the restaurantsection, although over-the-counter saleshave also increased.

The Alaskan reindeer industry isexploring the potential of expanding itsmeat sales as well as antler sales. Meatproduction increased from 320,000 poundsin 1987 to 432,000 pounds in 1988. Thisproduction increase is reflected in a 27percent increase in dollar value (AlaskaCrop and Livestock Reporting Service,1989). Under current management proce-dures, potential meat production has beenestimated at 500,000 pounds (Pearson andLewis, 1988). Any future market expansionis likely to occur in urban Alaska and inareas outside the state (Jones, 1988).

Evidence exists that some consum-ers are willing to pay premium prices forreindeer. In one speciality meat market,New Yorkers paid $14.97 per pound in1987. Prices of reindeer in speciality food

catalogs range from $12.00 to $45.00 perpound (Jones, 1988). Consumers are plac-ing less emphasis than in the past on costas the primary deciding factor in foodpurchases. However, these consumers doexpect to obtain value for each dollar spent(McNutt, 1988). Value has become syn-onymous with quality.

Quality has been identified as themajor key to success and growth in today’sfood industry. “If the consumer’s demandfor quality is not met, loyalty will be trans-ferred to another competitive product”(Martin, 1988). Scandinavian and Cana-dian reindeer and New Zealand red deercompete with Alaskan reindeer in nationaland international markets. Thus, success-ful entry and maintenance of market sharewill be dependent on the quality character-istics of the Alaskan reindeer meat. Nutri-tional content and safety are among thequality characteristics that are increasinglyimportant to consumers (McNutt, 1988).Because growth of meat sales beyond thetraditional markets in rural Alaska hasbeen hampered by the decreased market-ability of the reindeer forequarter (Jones,1988), this primal (wholesale) cut was usedin this study. The forequarter comprises

QUALITYASSESSMENTOF REINDEER

MEATR.B. Swanson1, M.P. Penfield2, D. Mitchell2,

M.J. Reimann2, and H.D. Loveday2

1Division of Resources ManagementAgricultural and Forestry Experiment Station,

University of Alaska Fairbanks

2Dept. Food Technology and ScienceAgricultural Experiment Station

The University of Tennessee

Circular 78 February 1990

approximately 45 percent of the carcassweight (Zhigunov, 1961).

Materials and Methods

Six representative reindeer forequar-ters were obtained from commercialsources in March 1989. The forequarters,which had been harvested during thespring handling on the Seward Peninsula,were shipped under typical conditions toThe University of Tennessee for the study.The samples were allowed to thaw for 48hours at 2 degrees C prior to analyses.Swab tests were conducted to determinethe Aerobic Plate Count (APC) on the fore-quarter surfaces.

Composite samples from the fore-quarters were analyzed for moisture and fatlevels (AOAC, 1984). Approximate proteincontent was calculated by difference. Fattyacid composition was also determined(AOCS, 1975).

Results and Discussion

Nutritional quality

Nutritional attributes of food prod-ucts have altered food selection and con-sumption patterns as evidenced by thedecreased consumption of domestic redmeats and increased consumption of fishand poultry. Fish and poultry are usuallylower in total fat as well as saturated fatcontent. These changes have been linked toincreasing consumer awareness of therelationship between fat consumption andhealth (Breidenstein, 1988).

Fat, moisture, and protein content ofthe reindeer forequarters are shown inTable 1; USDA (1975, 1983, 1986) data forsimilar beef, pork, and lamb cuts are in-cluded for comparison. Reindeer had aprotein content that ranged from 2.7 to 7.6percent higher than that reported for do-mestic red meats. The fat content of thereindeer forequarter varied with retail cut.The shoulder portion had little external fatcover, which resulted in a very low fatcontent and a higher moisture content.The composite samples which included

soft tissue taken primarily from the ribsand shank, exhibited a fat content ap-proximately 2.5 times that of the shouldermuscle. These higher fat samples includedthe external fat which surrounded the ribsas well as the intramuscular fat present.

Fat content of the domestic redmeats differed with species and retail cut.Reindeer shoulder muscle had less fat thandid the lean cuts of the beef chuck bladeroasts, lean pork shoulder, and lamb cuts.The composite reindeer sample had consid-erably less fat than did beef chuck with fatand beef short ribs.

The reindeer fatty acid profile (Table2) revealed lower levels of unsaturated fattyacids than are found in domestic red meatanimals (Dugan, 1987). The relative propor-tion of unsaturated fatty acids was in-creased when external fat was incorpo-rated. In this composite sample, the rein-deer fatty acid composition, like that of thedomestic red meat animals, was rich instearic, palimitic, and oleic acids. Althoughthe shoulder muscle, which contained onlyintramuscular fat, was also high in thesefatty acids, myristic was present in thegreatest quantity. Longer chained fattyacids also comprised a greater percentageof the fatty acids present in this leansample. Among domestic red meat ani-mals, fatty acid composition is influencedby animal age, diet and environment(Dugan, 1987). Similar effects on reindeerfatty acid composition are likely to occur.

Despite the higher saturated fatcontent of reindeer, consumers who eatreindeer rather than an equal-sized portionof beef, lamb or pork will consume muchlower levels of saturated fats due to thelower total fat content. Indeed, the satu-rated fat content of the reindeer was withinthe same range reported for poultry andfish (Linscheer and Vergroesen, 1988).Therefore, the inherent nutritional at-tributes of reindeer should appeal tohealth-conscious consumers.

Microbiological safety

Safety, particularly microbiologicalsafety, like nutritional content has becomean essential quality factor for all foodstuffs(McNutt, 1988). Recently, consumer con-

cerns about the safety of muscle food prod-ucts have led to the introduction of legisla-tion to require mandatory inspection ofseafood as well as domestic red meats andpoultry. The exotic animal inspectionregulation has also been extended to rein-deer. Consumers want some assurancethat the product available for purchase issafe and wholesome.

Meat is essentially sterile at the timeof slaughter. However, the necessary skin-ning, evisceration, and cutting exposes thecarcass to large numbers of naturallyoccurring microorganisms. The level ofcontamination differs with the processingand handling procedures employed (Niven,1987).

Slaughter of Alaskan reindeer occursunder arctic field conditions. After thereindeer are killed, the carcass is split, andinternal organs are removed. Typically, thehide is also removed. The carcass is al-lowed to hang for one to 12 hours prior towrapping in gauze for shipment to Nome forfinal processing and sale. Only the finalcutting and sales are completed in anindoor facility.

Aerobic Plate Count (APC), an indica-tion of the degree of contamination present,is reported in Table 3. Low levels of micro-organisms were found on the reindeerforequarters (2.34 log APC/in2 to 3.39 logAPC/in2). These values are considerablylower than the typical range of 4.8 log APC/in2 to 7.8 log APC/in2 from beef (Ayres et al,1980) The low arctic air temperatures(usually around -23 degrees C) inhibitedthe growth of bacteria on the fresh meat.The relatively quick freezing of the car-casses further limited the growth of micro-organisms by reducing water activity.Therefore, the field-harvesting techniquesused yielded a product that was safe andwholesome.

Concluding Remarks

Two attributes important in theconsumer’s assessment of quality werestudied. Although consumers may havequestions about microbiological contamina-tion of field-harvested reindeer, the fore-quarters studied were safe and wholesome.From a nutritional perspective, Alaskan

reindeer should appeal to health-consciousconsumers who wish to reduce their fatintake while consuming red meat. Theforequarters evaluated were representativeof animals harvested during the springhandling; different results may be found ifanimals slaughtered during handlings atother times of the year were studied.

References

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