Quality and origins of the National or Ambassador brands of lamb sold in Korea?

August 27, 2011 8:58 AM

Can anyone tell me about the National or Ambassador brands of frozen lamb sold in Korea, but from elsewhere in Asia - origins, quality etc? Anyone enough of a web detective to find more info, or can make an educated guess from what you know?

I'm trying to find information about these brands of lamb regarding the following - is the lamb grass-fed (pastured), is it farmed in a relatively healthy way and processed under clean conditions, what country are the animals reared in etc. Basically is it ok to eat probably in rare burgers.

The brands are 'Ambassador' and 'National'. One is sold as frozen lamb 'keema' which is Hindi/Urdu for ground meat/mince I think. They are packaged from an Asian country, I don't know which. India/Pakistan makes sense, but I was thinking Malaysia for some reason. I dunno. I don't know if the meat originally comes from this country.

posted by Not Supplied to food & drink (4 answers total)

I have a partial answer, maybe. If the logo on this page (PDF, sorry) looks right, then Ambassador lamb is Australian, and will presumably be subject to whatever food safety and animal welfare laws are in force there. I can't find any details about the original supplier, so I'd play it safe and assume that the standards will be no higher than mandated by Australian law.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 12:12 PM on August 27, 2011

Using the hint from the eponysterical ManyLeggedCreature I found the producer (or at least penultimate supplier) here. Their website says that it's pasture-fed in Gippsland, in South-Eastern Victoria, Australia. Australia is pretty damn picky about its meat, and AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service) places a whole extra level of safeguards on top of that, so I think you can feel relaxed and confident about the quality of the meat - at least until it lands in Korea.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:46 AM on August 28, 2011

Oh - that's just for the Ambassador brand, but if the National brand is also Australian then you'll probably be able to locate the supplier by contacting AQIS.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:50 AM on August 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the research. I think any Australian lamb will be fine for me and ambassador looks cool. Chances are National is Aus as well, but I might stick mostly to Ambassador.
posted by Not Supplied at 6:50 PM on August 28, 2011