Slaughterhouse Rules: Animal Uniformity and Regulating for Food Safety in Meat Packing

Meat retailers express demand for a more uniform product, and technical innovations are allowing an increasingly uniform supply. Packers can promote uniformity through pre-slaughter sorting, or earlier through contracts. Emphasizing effort on the packing line, we develop a model whereby packers gain from carcass handling efficiencies when animal uniformity increases. Whether optimally regulated or not, equilibrium food safety declines with increased uniformity. A line speed regulation can increase welfare in the presence of food safety externalities by reducing the opportunity cost of allocating effort toward promoting food safety. The regulation also reduces packer demand for more uniform animals. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Consumer sensory acceptance and value for beef steaks of similar tenderness but differing in marbling level

To determine consumer sensory acceptance and value of beef steaks differing in marbling level (high = upper 2/3 USDA Choice and low = USDA Select), but similar in Warner-Bratzler shear value, consumers in Chicago and San Francisco (n = 124 per city) evaluated two matched pairs of high- and low-marbled strip steaks, and had the opportunity to participate in a silent, sealed-bid auction to purchase steaks from the same strip loins as the samples. Consumers who purchased steaks also evaluated the steaks when prepared in their homes. Based on overall acceptability ratings, consumers were categorized into three groups: 1) those who consistently found high marbling more acceptable, 2) those who consistently found low marbling more acceptable, and 3) those who were indifferent. Consumers who evaluated at least one high-marbled and one low-marbled sample in their home were included in an evaluation environment analysis (n = 50). High-marbled steaks were rated higher (P 0.10) in flavor, juiciness, tenderness and overall acceptability when evaluating the steaks in their homes. In addition, these consumers were willing to pay similar (P > 0.10) amounts for high- and low-marbled samples in both environments. Overall, consumers found high-marbled steaks to be more acceptable than low-marbled steaks in flavor and overall acceptability when tenderness differences were minimized in the laboratory environment. Consumers were willing to pay more for their preference, whether that preference was for high-marbled or low-marbled steaks