Lynn Van Wezemael

Relationships between sensory evaluations of beef tenderness, shear force measurements and consumer characteristics

The supply of tender beef is an important challenge for the beef industry. Knowledge about the profile of consumers who are more optimistic or more accurate in their tenderness evaluations is important for product development and beef marketing purposes. Central location tests of beef steaks were performed in Norway and Belgium (n=218). Instrumental and sensorial tenderness of three muscles from Belgian Blue and Norwegian Red cattle was reported. Consumers who are optimistically evaluating tenderness were found to be more often male, less food neophobic, more positive towards beef healthiness, and showed fewer concerns about beef safety. No clear profile emerged for consumers who assessed tenderness similar to shear force measurements, which suggests that tenderness is mainly evaluated subjectively. The results imply a window of opportunities in tenderness improvements, and allow targeting a market segment which is less critical towards beef tenderness.

Modelling of beef sensory quality for a better prediction of palatability.

Despite efforts by the industry to control the eating quality of beef, there remains a high level of variability in palatability, which is one reason for consumer dissatisfaction. In Europe, there is still no reliable on-line tool to predict beef quality and deliver consistent quality beef to consumers. Beef quality traits depend in part on the physical and chemical properties of the muscles. The determination of these properties (known as muscle profiling) will allow for more informed decisions to be made in the selection of individual muscles for the production of value-added products. Therefore, scientists and professional partners of the ProSafeBeef project have brought together all the data they have accumulated over 20 years. The resulting BIF-Beef (Integrated and Functional Biology of Beef) data warehouse contains available data of animal growth, carcass composition, muscle tissue characteristics and beef quality traits. This database is useful to determine the most important muscle characteristics associated with a high tenderness, a high flavour or generally a high quality. Another more consumer driven modelling tool was developed in Australia: the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) grading scheme that predicts beef quality for each individual muscle×specific cooking method combination using various information on the corresponding animals and post-slaughter processing factors. This system has also the potential to detect variability in quality within muscles. The MSA system proved to be effective in predicting beef palatability not only in Australia but also in many other countries. The results of the work conducted in Europe within the ProSafeBeef project indicate that it would be possible to manage a grading system in Europe similar to the MSA system. The combination of the different modelling approaches (namely muscle biochemistry and a MSA-like meat grading system adapted to the European market) is a promising area of research to improve the prediction of beef quality. In both approaches, the volume of data available not only provides statistically sound correlations between various factors and beef quality traits but also a better understanding of the variability of beef quality according to various criteria (breed, age, sex, pH, marbling etc.).

Evaluation of a Mixed Participatory Method to Improve Mutual Understanding Between Consumers and Chain Actors

In the research project, Medialog, a mixed participatory method, was applied to improve mutual understanding between consumers and chain actors in the French beef supply chain. This article presents a mixed methods evaluation of this participatory method using a SWOT analysis. The evaluation reveals several strengths of the participatory method such as dialogue and flexibility, as well as opportunities for wider application, for example, growing interest in multidisciplinary research and public involvement. However, identified weaknesses, such as quality of participants and time-consuming nature, and threats, such as lack of interest among policymakers and competing methods, should be monitored. The participatory method is found to be suitable to study various subjects and objects, particularly related to food consumption and supply chains.