Meat standards and grading

This paper addresses the principles related to different grading and classification systems of the world with specific focus on beef quality related outcomes. The paper uses the definitions that classification is a set of descriptive terms describing features of the carcass that are useful as guidelines to those involved in the production, trading and consumption of carcasses, whereas grading is the placing of different values on carcasses for pricing purposes, depending on the market and requirements of traders and consumers. The literature shows that the criteria used in grading systems rank carcasses fairly accurately according to expected eating experience of the loin muscles but not of higher connective tissue cuts of the hind and fore quarter. Criteria used in classification systems give limited descriptions of the quality related characteristics of the carcass. Only the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) cuts based grading system of Australia seeks to define or predict consumer satisfaction with a cooked meal for each cut of the carcass. Its success is based on a palatability assured critical control point (PACCP) approach to satisfy the consumer. However, MSA requires high technical skills, a well organised infrastructure and proper traceability, high level of integrity from different role players and could be very costly, involving high additional personnel cost. The South African classification system should probably focus on distinguishing between young feedlot and somewhat more mature pasture animals with different criteria within each sub category to describe the variation in product quality. Correct pre-slaughter and slaughter management (stress, weight, chilling rate, electrical stimulation, post mortem aging) could improve consistency within age group.Keywords: Classification, grading, beef, dentition, age

The European beef carcass grading scheme prioritizes meat yield over consumer eating experience, in contrast to the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) grading scheme, which is more focused on eating quality. The Italian–French beef production system, mostly characterized by young bulls and heifers imported from France and then fattened within Italian specialized fattening units, has been underexplored using the MSA grading system. This study examines the impact of animal sex on performance, MSA traits, and predicted MSA quality scores (MQ4 and MSA index) using carcasses from an Italian commercial abattoir. It also assesses how animal performance and MSA traits influence predicted beef eating quality. A Random Forest classifier demonstrated high performance with an accuracy of .98, a specificity of .99, and a sensitivity of .97 after 10-fold cross-validations, confirming key traits such as hot carcass weight, European carcass grading scheme fatness score, and general muscular characteristics as being significantly different due to sex. Entire males had greater muscle development, whereas females had notably higher MSA marbling scores, MQ4 scores, and MSA index (P < .05). Furthermore, categorizing the MSA index into 2 classes and applying a similar Random Forest classifier approach revealed that MSA marbling was the primary factor influencing variability of the MSA index. These findings suggest that beef cuts from females may better meet consumer expectations when using the MSA grading scheme in Europe, making them a suitable category for premium beef branding. Grading carcasses from entire male animals for sensory quality is also important, as it demonstrates their potential to produce good-quality beef with a higher lean meat yield; however, their sensory quality tends to be lower than that of heifers and this is in part reflected by their lower marbling score resulting from reduced intramuscular fat deposition.

The Meat Standards Australia Index indicates beef carcass quality

The first aim of this study conducted in France was to examine consumer habits concerning beef consumption, as well as any reasons, which may explain the relative decline in interest in beef consumption. Two surveys were conducted based on a sample of 625 beef consumers to analyse the frequency of their meat consumption and its evolution. The survey also aimed to explore consumers’ understanding of the new labelling system, which was introduced in France in 2015 to indicate the eating quality potential of cuts with stars. Half of the respondents have reduced their beef consumption. Whereas inconsistency in eating quality is one reason among others which contribute to explain this decline, results showed that 70% of the respondents have not seen yet the new labels on beef. Nevertheless, this system represents a major progress for the French beef sector and should be developed further. Indeed, French consumers would be interested in a meat grading system based on tenderness as the one in Australia. Such a system could reduce the decline in beef consumption and even reverse this negative trend.HighlightsThe decline in meat consumption may be explained by the high price of beef, and concerns about health, environment, eating quality and animal welfare.A large proportion of the respondents (72%) is not aware of the new labelling system for beef in supermarket self-service aisles.Further developing this new system to a grading scheme similar to the ‘Meat Standards Australia’ would be judicious.

For decades, research has focused on predicting beef palatability using muscle biochemical traits, and various biomarkers. In these approaches, a precise definition of the variable to predict (tenderness assessed by panelists, untrained consumers, or shear force), and repeatability of the measurements are crucial for creating significant data resources for the derivation of robust predictive models, and rigorous validation testing. This “big data” approach also requires careful definition of traits and transparent principles for data sharing and management. As in other fields, meat science researchers should improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of data (known as the FAIR principles). Furthermore, with the rapid evolution of new measurement technologies, the traits that they measure must be consistently described, enhancing our ability to integrate these new measurements into existing description systems. For beef, strategic choices have been made in order to consider real consumers’ expectations, not well estimated correctly by lab approaches. This strategy has been successfully developed in Australia, which set up the “Meat Standards Australia” grading scheme, now partly adopted by the beef industry. The ambitions of the International Meat Research 3G Foundation is to develop beef ontology, to set up an international database with a huge number of consumers’ scores related to beef palatability and collected according to standard protocols. The foundation also aims to support the beef industry by offering an international predictive model of beef palatability, flexible enough to take into account any local livestock characteristics or regional consumer specificity. This approach is supported by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which is promoting development of regulations and norms, technical cooperation and exchange of best expertise and practices. This will substantially improve the transparency of data flow and price signaling between all participants of the value chain, from beef producers through to consumers at retail.

Prediction of consumer palatability in beef using visual marbling scores and chemical intramuscular fat percentage

In its first 7-year term, the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for the Cattle and Beef Industry (Meat Quality) identified the genetic and non-genetic factors that impacted on beef eating quality. Following this, the CRC for Cattle and Beef Quality was established in 1999 to identify the consequences of improving beef eating quality and feed efficiency by genetic and non-genetic means on traits other than carcass and beef quality. The new CRC also had the responsibility to incorporate results from the first Beef CRC in national schemes such as BREEDPLAN (Australia’s beef genetic evaluation scheme) and Meat Standards Australia (Australia’s unique meat grading scheme that guarantees the eating quality of beef). This paper describes the integrated research programs and their results involving molecular and quantitative genetics, meat science, growth and nutrition and industry economics in the Beef CRC’s second phase (1999–2006) and the rationale for the individual genetics programs established. It summarises the planned scientific and beef industry outcomes from each of these programs and also describes the development and/or refinement by CRC scientists of novel technologies targeting increased genetic gains through enhanced measurement and recording in beef industry herds, thereby ensuring industry use of CRC results.

Describing the current landscape of pass/fail grading schemes within skills-based pharmacy curricula

One of the ongoing problems in beef marketing has been to market a product that is consistent and enjoyable. The Australian solution is to use a beef grading scheme called Meat Standards Australia (MSA) to define beef eating quality. Quality is defined on the basis of the consumers’ eating experiences by assigning muscle or muscle portions to 4 grades comprising “unsatisfactory” (2 star), “good every day” (3 star), “better than everyday” (4 star) and “premium” (5 star) quality. One issue for marketers is how to price these newly defined quality grades. This paper evaluates the willingness to pay (WTP) by consumers for the defined levels of eating quality and interactions with consumer demographic factors and meat consumption preferences. The data comprised exit surveys from 6718 consumers who participated in taste panel sessions in Australia, the United States, Japan and Ireland conducted between 2005 and 2008. Consumers from each country scored WTP for the different grades in units of their relevant currency. These estimates were then expressed as a ratio of the price for ‘good everyday quality’ to allow comparison between the different currencies. The results clearly showed that consumers in all countries were willing to pay more for 4 and 5 star qualities

'Economic Development and Language: A Journey Through India'

Effects of different ageing methods on colour, yield, oxidation and sensory qualities of Australian beef loins consumed in Australia and Japan.

La baisse de la consommation individuelle de viande bovine s’explique par des questions sociétales relatives à l’environnement et au bien-être animal, mais aussi par son prix d’achat et par la variabilité non maîtrisée et décevante de la qualité sensorielle, d’après des enquêtes auprès des consommateurs. Cet article se propose de synthétiser les connaissances scientifiques sur le déterminisme de la qualité sensorielle de la viande bovine et leur application concrète pour classer les viandes bovines. Cette qualité sensorielle dépend des caractéristiques biologiques des tissus musculaires en relation avec les pratiques d’élevage, la race, le sexe et l’âge de l’animal mais aussi pour une grande part des évolutions biologiques du muscle au cours de la maturation de la viande. Les systèmes de classement des carcasses et des viandes prennent peu en compte ces éléments à l’exception de la note de persillé dans certains pays. Le système MSA (Meat Standards Australia) et son équivalent européen (le système 3G) sont en capacité de prédire pour chaque pièce de boucherie la qualité sensorielle de la viande bovine, non pas directement à partir des indicateurs de la biologie musculaire avant et après abattage, mais à partir de facteurs qui régulent ces indicateurs tels que les caractéristiques des animaux et de leurs carcasses, et les conditions d’abattage, de maturation et de cuisson. D’autres recherches sont en cours pour améliorer cette prédiction en utilisant divers outils (spectromètre, caméra…) en mesurant sur la chaîne de production des critères spécifiques pris en compte par ces modèles, notamment le persillé.

Flight time, an objective measure of temperament, was recorded in 3594 Brahman, Belmont Red, and Santa Gertrudis heifers and steers. Two subjective measures of temperament (crush score and flight speed score) were also available for over 2000 of these animals. Temperament measures were recorded post-weaning (average age 8 months) and again at the start of finishing (average age 19 months) on a subset of the animals. Nine meat quality traits were measured on these animals and included measures on 2 different muscles [M. longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LTL) and M. semitendinosus (ST)]. The heritability of flight time measured post-weaning and at the start of finishing was 0.30 and 0.34, respectively, with a repeatability of 0.46 across the measurement times. Heritabilities for scored temperament traits were 0.21, 0.19, and 0.15 for post-weaning flight speed score, post-weaning crush score, and start of finishing crush score, respectively. Genetic correlations across measurement times for flight time were 0.98 and 0.96 for crush score, indicating a strong underlying genetic basis of these temperament measures over time; however, the corresponding phenotypic correlations were lower (0.48 and 0.37, respectively). Longer flight times (i.e. better temperament) were genetically correlated with improved tenderness (i.e. lower shear force and higher tenderness scores), with genetic correlations of –0.42 and 0.33 between LTL shear force, and Meat Standards Australia (MSA) tenderness, respectively. Genetic correlations between post-weaning crush score and the same meat quality traits were 0.39 and –0.47, respectively. However, genetic and phenotypic correlations between measures of temperament and other meat quality traits were generally low, with the exception of crush scores with LTL Minolta a* value (–0.37 and –0.63 for post-weaning and start of finishing measurement time, respectively). Predicted correlated responses of –0.17 kg LTL shear force and 2.6 MSA tenderness points per generation were predicted based on the genetic parameter estimates and a recording regime of both flight time and crush scores. Selection based on the measures of temperament described in this study could be used to improve temperament itself and correlated improvements can also occur in meat tenderness and eating quality traits in tropically adapted breeds of cattle.

A good grading scheme can lead to improvements in efficiency, as producers have a financial incentive to modify their production methods to produce carcases that are the most desired by consumers. In India, consumers and producers often do not have a clear understanding of pork grading and are not into practice. The existing Indian Standard for Specification for pork, i.e. IS: 1723-1973 specifies only two grades of pork, i.e. Grade 1 and Grade 2, which is per se insufficient to meet the current marketing requirements. Thus, a more relevant pork grading system was developed with distinct yield grades (Grade 1, 2, 3 and 4 in case of gilt/barrow and Grade 1, 2, 3 and C in case of sow) and quality grades (Grade P, I, N and D). Different classes of grades for gilt/barrow and sow carcasses was necessitated due to distinct difference observed in the pattern of change among the parameters, which directly affected the carcass yield, viz. chilled carcass weight, back fat thickness and percent yield of primal cuts. Data were collected from 1,017 pigs of different breeds and varieties over a period of 9 years and critically analyzed before assigned them to the respective grades. Also, to ensue uniformity in the dressing operations of different pig carcass and to facilitate grading, standard dressing specifications were developed based on chilled carcass weight, separately for gilts/barrows and sows. The new grading system has elements of both classification and grading schemes and is simple to understand and perform.

New York University School of Medicine