Prediction of eating quality of Italian Simmental beef from butcher’s steak appearance judgment

An expert is defined by the American Society of Testing Materials as someone with extensive experience in a product category who performs perceptual evaluations to draw conclusions about the effects of variations in raw materials, processing, storage, aging, and so on. As such, the butcher may be considered an expert on meat quality. Numerous systems of beef quality classification have been developed in different Countries that rely on appearance evaluation by experts. On the other hand, in Europe, reliable systems guaranteeing eating quality are still lacking, in spite of numerous private and official quality signs which exist at the consumer level. A European beef consumer survey found that consumers hold a strong interest in beef eating-quality guarantees. The aim of the present work, carried out in the framework of a CRITA-FVG project for the valorisation of Italian Simmental (IS) beef, was to define a quality meat grid system based on butcher’s appearance judgment as a tool to predict beef eating quality. Four experts developed a grid system for the evaluation of the steaks quality: individual interviews were conducted about the quality of the Longissimus thoracis muscle (LT) of an IS steak between the 8th - 9th ribs. Seven meat characteristics, two descriptors of fat, the presence of any defects and global “overall quality” assessment were included in the quality grid system. Experts evaluated the quality of 29 young bull steaks. The partial least square (PLS) regression analysis was adopted to assess which experts’ descriptors contributed to the overall quality, defining the criteria of the quality index calculation. Based on quality indexes, two levels of beef quality were highlighted: high and standard. A trained panel performed a quantitative descriptive analysis of LT from the same 29 carcasses. The panel evaluated the cooked muscle of each animal in duplicate. In order to identify any relationship between quality levels and sensory profile, the PLS discriminant analysis model was built between the sensory attribute matrix (X) and the quality class matrix (Y). Results showed that the differences in terms of quality highlighted by experts were also reflected in the cooked meat, when evaluated by a trained panel. The significant differences between the two quality levels in terms of sensory profile will be discussed. It seems that the developed quality index is a helpful tool to valorise the IS meat, guaranteeing the eating quality of beef.