Contributed to: 60th Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production. Book of abstracts No. 15 (Barcelona, Spain, 24-27 August 2009).A slaughter trial was carried out to identify improved measurement techniques for meat eating and carcass
quality in beef. Data on 194 steer and heifer beef cattle from rotational crosses of Aberdeen Angus and
Limousin were available. Meat eating quality characteristics measured were sensory traits (tenderness,
flavour, juiciness and abnormal flavour, 14 days post mortem (pm)), instrumental tenderness (slice shear
force, 3 days pm; Volodkevitch 10 days pm), fatty acid profiles (saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, 48
h pm), colour (48 h pm) and cooking loss (14 days pm). Visible and near infrared reflectance spectroscopy
(Vis-NIR) measurements were taken in the abattoir on the M. longissimus thoracis between 12th/13th ribs at
48 h pm over the spectral range from 350 to 1,800 nm. Partial least square regression was used for prediction
of meat eating quality traits from Vis-NIR spectra. Measurements of Vis-NIR showed correlations with
sensory traits of 0.45 (juiciness) to 0.77 (flavour), physical measurements of 0.61 (Volodkevitch) and 0.74
(slice shear force), fatty acids in the range from 0.49 to 0.80, colour of 0.93 (red-green) to 0.95 (yellow-blue)
and cooking loss of 0.60. The results indicate that based on the measurements of Vis-NIR spectra online
in the abattoir, it was possible to successfully predict numerous (mostly lowly correlated) meat quality
characteristics. This shows the high variation in absorption at different Vis-NIR wavelengths due to factors
such as muscular fibre characteristics, chemical bonds and colour, which are associated with various meat
quality characteristics. Generally, the results support the use of on-line Vis-NIR in the abattoir for early,
fast and relatively inexpensive estimation of beef meat quality and its use in value based marketing systems
and genetic improvement programmes.Peer reviewe
