Metabolic fingerprinting using Rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry can discriminate meat quality and composition of lambs from different sexes, breeds and forage systems

•REIMS could discriminate meat samples from lambs fed on different forage diets.•REIMS was also able to distinguish between breed and sex.•REIMS features were correlated with meat quality traits including pH and shear force.•Lamb meat from Merino breed had a unique quality and REIMS metabolite profile.