{"id":19115,"date":"2018-04-27T14:12:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T19:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gobrangus.com\/?p=19115"},"modified":"2018-09-25T14:21:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T19:21:00","slug":"carcass-merit-and-meat-quality-in-bos-indicus-influenced-cattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gobrangus.com\/carcass-merit-and-meat-quality-in-bos-indicus-influenced-cattle\/","title":{"rendered":"Carcass Merit and Meat Quality In Bos Indicus Influenced Cattle"},"content":{"rendered":"
by\u00a0Raluca Mateescu, PhD., University of Florida<\/p>\n The U.S. Beef Quality Audit identified low and inconsistent quality as major impediments to improving domestic demand for beef products. Consumers evaluate the quality of beef at the point of purchase with respect to freshness, marbling and color. Consumers evaluate the quality of beef at the point of consumption, where the focus is on quality of eating experience or palatability described by three sensory traits: tenderness, juiciness and flavor. Ability to deliver a consistently superior quality product is important if the beef industry is to maintain and expand its share of the market. The strength shown by the high-quality branded-beef market in the last few years confirms that a sizable proportion of consumers are willing to pay for assured quality, indicating that the importance of quality is only going to increase going forward. Meeting and exceeding quality expectations will be needed to maintain or even increase market share. Even more important for the future of the industry is expanding the consumer base. As the average income increases, new consumers will enter the beef market, and the eating quality these new consumers experience will largely determine if they will continue to demand beef. Improving eating quality is critical to convince both habitual and new consumers of the superior value they are getting from the money spent on beef. Tenderness is the most important sensory attribute consumers use to judge beef quality and is a major focus in my research program at the University of Florida.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The USDA grading system, established in 1996, is based on marbling and maturity and is used to separate beef carcasses into groups with uniform quality. In the absence of any other system, the beef industry is using the USDA grading system to determine premium and discounts, to predict the palatability of the meat from a beef carcass, and to communicate it to the consumers. Although the USDA grading system has served the industry well, changes in consumers\u2019 preferences, limitations in the ability of the system to predict eating quality, and limited consumer understanding of how the system works are some of the problems associated with using this system as indicator of palatability. By comparison, beef is an expensive animal protein and what sets it apart are its distinctive sensory attributes leading to a unique eating experience. Programs to improve eating experience when consuming beef and the ability to better predict the eating quality level for marketing purposes are critical to increase consumers\u2019 confidence that quality expectations are met. Management and genetic programs designed to address these issues and management practices that positively or negatively influence eating experience need to be developed.<\/p>\n To analyze the relationship between the USDA quality grade and the degree of tenderness, I used a dataset of 3,125 animals spanning the range from 100-percent Angus to 100-percent Brahman. In this data set, 1,378 were Brangus\u00ae<\/sup>\u00a0animals. The phenotypes of interest were tenderness assessed by Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) and USDA quality grade. The WBSF is an objective measure of tenderness, and it measures the force required to shear a cooked steak in kilograms (kg). The lower the number, the less force is required \u2013 indicating a more tender steak. The USDA-Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA-AMS) is engaged in designing standards to indicate the degree of tenderness for beef. In this program, a steak with a WBSF less than 4.2 kg is considered tender, and a steak with WBSF less than 3.7 kg is considered very tender. The average WBSF for the population used in this study was 4.49 kg and, using the USDA-AMS standard, 42.8 percent of our animals would be considered tough, 11 percent tender, and 46.2 percent would qualify as very tender.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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