Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of different low-cost instruments to measure pork colour in comparison to Minolta spectrophotometers and industry subjective standards. Canadian pork colour standards and commercial meat (252 loin chops and 46 tenderloins) were measured using two Minolta (CM 700D) spectrophotometers, four Nix sensors (two Nix Pro II and two Nix QC), and four Spectro devices (two Spectro 1 and two Spectro 1 Pro). Using Bland-Altman plots, all hand-held devices revealed similar performance on colour coordinates, except for the Nix Pro II, which had more variability on a* value, and Spectro 1 Pro on b* value, when compared to Minolta measurements. Low RSD values (< 5%) were obtained from repeated measurements on Canadian colour standards. The trend of colour coordinates on colour scores (0–6) were similar for all four commercial instruments, except for a* from Nix Pro and b* from Spectro 1. The correlation coefficients between subjective standards and colour coordinates from the Nix and Spectro devices were slightly higher than the Minolta spectrophotometers. Even though Nix and Spectro 1 series instruments generated different absolute colour coordinate values on meat samples, these pocket-size instruments presented great reliability to measure pork surface colour. However, operational limitations of the instruments, such as the internal calibration time between samples for the Spectro 1 series, should also be considered.
Highlights
The consumer’s first perception of pork quality is heavily influenced by lean colour, with darker lean colour being more desirable [1]
Meat colour measurements are often performed by experienced graders by assessing fresh pork surface colour against a subjective colour score standard, which is susceptible to inconsistency of scores among graders [4]
For a*, the Nix Pro II instruments displayed the highest values from score 0 to 6
Summary
The consumer’s first perception of pork quality is heavily influenced by lean colour, with darker lean colour being more desirable [1]. Meat colour measurements are often performed by experienced graders by assessing fresh pork surface colour against a subjective colour score standard, which is susceptible to inconsistency of scores among graders [4]. As up to 60% of journal articles use Minolta measurements to assess meat colour [6], and the NPPC [7] assigns Minolta L* values to accompany colour standards rather than HunterLab. L* values [4], the Minolta is known to be used as a ‘gold standard’ assessment. Other factors influence fresh meat colour measurement results, including light source (illuminant)
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