Factors affecting quality of meat

Meat quality and consistency are important in ensuring consumer satisfaction. Quality of meat is affected by the genetic propensity of the animal, how the animal is reared, and the nutritional status during production. These factors affect the fat, lean and connective tissue component of meat and therefore influence meat quality. Genetic differences are being understood as genetic markers are being developed for many major quality characteristics within species.

As the production segment selects animals to maximize quality, reduction in meat quality can be obtained. However, these animals must be fed and reared to maximize quality. Quality also is strongly influenced by conditions at the slaughter plant. How animals are handled pre-slaughter affects the rate of rigor mortis. The application of stunning and exsanguination methods that ensure reduced animal stress are important to meat quality. The application of electrical stimulation and how the carcass is chilled influence the rate of rigor mortis and subsequent meat quality.

The Future of meat quality.

The meat quality models developed to date have provided many benefits, in helping to predict meat quality attributes for the purposes of process design, in aiding understanding of the mechanisms that underlie those attributes, and in predicting consumer grades of meat with various characteristics. In the case of the MSA model for grading beef carcasses, which is used by the meat industry in Australia, the grading has resulted in increased returns to producers, processors, and retailers. These benefits will only be more important in the future as the understanding on which models are based and the need for quantitative predictions of product characteristics both increase over time.