Abstracts - Process et Technologies

This session presented at the recent combined EAAP/WAAP in Lyon described research on carcase grading to predict the true carcase value which is a product of eating quality of the cuts sold (determining price/kg) and lean meat yield determining the amount of meat sold. The results clearly show that it is possible to develop more sophisticated commercial grading systems underpinning true carcase value by using both traditional and new carcase grading technologies, importantly linked to the prediction of eating quality using untrained consumer based sensory testing. The new grading technologies based on X-ray and vision-based devices combined with rigorous statistical analysis, will lead to improved accuracies and precision. Even new traits like chemically measured intramuscular fat may replace human based visual grading of marbling. This will also facilitate carcase traits to be routinely used to underpin commercial genetic evaluation programmes.

The livestock industry in China is experiencing a notable shift towards quality and sustainability, driven by globally collaborative efforts and research advancements. This article, which is a compilation of the work presented at the EAAP congress (session 30), provides an overview of key topics in the meat industry of China, France and Australia. Ranging from the quality assessment and sustainable development of the meat field through triangular cooperation, to the quality characteristics and regulation of meat and meat production. Additionally, it explores consumer perceptions and factors affecting sensory appeal, as well as marbling evaluation in French bovines. Furthermore, it delves into the intricate relationship between nutrition, metabolism, and the efficiency of beef and lamb production. Through a collection of research findings, this article highlights the multifaceted landscape of China's livestock industry and the evolving factors influencing its growth.

The beef industry is structured by two types of consumption: everyday purchases oriented towards economical products in tender portions, often processed (such as chopped steak) and pleasure purchases oriented towards a search for gustatory pleasure and the satisfaction of societal and environmental criteria.
However, it is difficult for the industry to guarantee regular and homogeneous products to satisfy consumers. These inadequacies stem from the current carcass grading systems. Thus, the professionals we met appear to be in favor of a change in the grading system based on a sensory quality prediction system that could be inspired by foreign systems such as "Meat Standards Australia" for butchered cuts. Such a system, through its segmentation, could meet the expectations of both types of consumption, daily and pleasure, allowing to generate an added value for the whole sector as it is the case in Australia. However, the diversity of organizations with sometimes divergent interests makes it very unlikely, in the short term, to set up a prediction system on a sector-wide scale. Thus, the implementation of a carcass prediction system would more likely be the result of an individual initiative. The links where an individual initiative is most likely are, on the one hand, mass distribution for which the triggering lever lies in the dissemination of knowledge and, on the other hand, meat companies independent of livestock farming that wish to ensure a regular and qualitative supply. In addition, economic, operational, political and knowledge barriers make it unlikely that a sensory quality prediction system for beef will be developed collectively or by the upstream sector. However, a low probability exists, depending on the perception of a possible socio-economic opportunity by an innovative organization or on the evolution of European regulations.

In the last 40 years, the French bovine meat value chain improved bovine carcass performances, reducing the amount of adipose tissue and therefore marbling of meat. The importance of fat infiltration in meat for organoleptic quality has been once again recently proved. Thus, marbling is a research axis of INTERBEV (the French bovine meat interbranch organisation) in order to improve meat quality for consumers. Nevertheless, rearing factors impacting marbling level in meat have been poorly studied in France. The objective of this review is to identify breeding factors linked to animal or feeding which could enhance marbling level of bovine meat.

Today, it is important to make research results accessible to the public in a simple and understandable way. This objective is at the origin of the Open Science movement. This movement uses many tools available on the internet, publications and data available through open access or partnerships between scientists and actors of society. The meat dictionary first developed by the Meat Academy, served as a source for the creation of a specific thesaurus on meat and which could be useful to different actors of the sector, including consumers. The Meat Thesaurus contains 1505 concepts that describe the different facets of the meat sector such as the market and commercialization of meat, slaughtering, culinary preparations, etc. The creation of the thesaurus was done by a pluridisciplinary team including experts in web semantics, meat biology and experts of meat vocabulary. This thesaurus has several advantages. First, it may be used to help index articles, review articles and data sets, making their consultation by professionals, consumers, scientists or journalists easier. It may also be used as a basis for building an ontology, which is a formal description of knowledge in a field that will be used to reason from data. The thesaurus will also allow enriching other vocabulary to introduce new knowledge, like for example French specificities of meat cutting or terms and definitions.

Within the framework of the European consortium GemQual, 436 young cattle from 15 different cattle breeds were reared in similar livestock systems in order to assess the impact of the breed on beef sensory quality determined by sensory analysis. A comparison of two statistical methods to process sensory analysis data was first performed. The analysis of variance with or without a panelist effect led to similar results indicating that this methodological choice is not decisive for the interpretation of the results. An unsupervised classification (hierarchical ascending classification) then made it possible to group the breeds according to three sensory profiles on the basis of 4 descriptors (tenderness, juiciness, intensity of flavor and abnormal flavor). This highlights five breed associations.
- The Aberdeen Angus, Highland and Jersey breeds, which have a high fat content in the studied muscle (Longissimus thoracis), were distinguished from the other breeds by a higher beef flavor.
- The mixed and hardy breeds, Simmental, Casina and Marchigiana, produced meat that was significantly less juicy and less tender than that of the breeds selected for meat production.
The following three other associations bring together:
- the Limousin and Charolais breeds whose profile seems quite similar:
- the Pirenaica and Avilena breeds highly appreciated by the panelists since they produce tender beef,
- the Asturiana de los Valles and Piemontaise breeds characterized by a more intense abnormal flavour.
Overall, despite significant differences in animal, carcass and muscle characteristics, differences in sensory quality between most breeds were small, with only significant differences between the few breeds that exhibited extreme sensory profiles. (such as Simmental and Pirenaica).