Establishment of consumer thresholds for beef quality attributes

Acceptability threshold values for Warner-Bratzler shear (WBS) and trained sensory panel attributes were determined through regression analyses against consumer scores for overall tenderness, juiciness, flavour desirability and overall palatability for both the longissimus lumborum (LL) and semimembranosus (SM) muscles. Although consumers were not as sensitive to changes in tenderness as trained panellists, the relationship between consumer scores and trained panellist scores was moderate (r value = 0.64; P = 0.001). Based on the 50% confidence levels for WBS (7.85 and 8.15 kg for the LL and SM, respectively), 20% of LL steaks and 28% of SM roasts collected from commercial abattoirs and aged 6 d exceeded these thresholds. When assessed on the basis of subjective sensory panel scores for overall tenderness, 25.3% of LL steaks and 39.9% of SM roasts exceeded the 50% confidence level. Clearly, without intervention strategies beyond 6 d of aging, there was a significant portion of beef steaks and roasts which did not meet consumer expectations for tenderness. The fact there was a very poor relationship between tenderness in the LL and SM muscles suggests strategies used by industry to improve tenderness may need to be muscle specific.