Breeders and other Wagyu industry stakeholders from all states will gather for the activities taking place at the Rydges Lakeside Canberra Hotel, overlooking Lake Burley Griffin.

Following a meet and greet the previous evening, the con-ference program will com-mence on Saturday morning, October 18 immediately after the association's annual general meeting.

One of the keynote speakers this year will be noted Japanese meat scientist, Professor Keigo Kuchida, who is developing advanced objective carcase quality and yield assessment systems using digital image analysis.

The systems under development in Japan are said to offer a degree of sensitivity up to four times as acute as existing VIAscan systems, and can grade other attributes such as meat texture, as well as meat colour, fat colour, fat cover, and rib eye-muscle area and shape.

From this information, the equipment can extrapolate a predicted meat yield and intramuscular fat percentage for each carcase.

During the afternoon conference sessions, the focus will swing to the Wagyu ind-ustry's proposed certification scheme, currently in advanced stages of development.

Industry consultant Phil Greene from Greenleaf Enterprises will deliver a summary of the current version of the minimum standards model.

He will be supported by:

• An AQIS representative, who will discuss the use and application of breed descriptors in overseas markets from a regulatory perspective.
• The strength and value of beef brands, and truth in labelling will be discussed by Phil Morley, a former senior Woolworths red meat executive who now runs the Certified Australian Angus Beef brand scheme.
• David Foote, chief executive of Australian Country Choice, a large Brisbane domestic beef processor, who will discuss retail branding implications.
• A retail/food service brand integrity perspective to be presented by a well known restaurateur, Frank Correnti.

AWA members will be asked to vote on the implementation of the scheme following a forum session to be held on the Sunday morning, before the conclusion of the conference.

Conference sponsors incl-ude Elders, Commonwealth Bank, the Australian Agricul-tural Co, and Rural Press.

* Contact the AWA website www.wagyu.org.au or executive officer Michael Beattie on 0427 733 356.