New Zealand lamb meat producers form the largest group of exporters of lamb meat in the world, with exports valued in 2017 at $2.5B. Chilled vacuum-packed lamb meat products with extended shelf-life present a phenomenon known as confinement odour. Typically, this manifests itself as “different” odours that dissipate within a few minutes after pack opening. This harmless odour can lead to the rejection by the consumer of still-fresh product. In this study we have applied NMR-based metabolomics to investigate the ability to detect indicators of confinement odour and spoilage using samples derived from both meat and drip. This analysis demonstrated that butyrate and a combination of leucine and lysine were more abundant in spoiled samples, while lactate was more abundant in samples exhibiting confinement odour. This is consistent with the theory that there is a predominance of butyric acid producing bacteria (such as certain species of Clostridia) in spoiled samples, compared with a higher proportion of lactic acid bacteria in the samples with confinement odour (Reis et al. 2016). Overall, it may suggest that confinement odour could be an early indicator of the onset of spoilage.