Certain relationships between Animal Performance, Sensory Quality and Nutritional Quality can be generalized between various experiments on animal of similar types

Abstract

In the beef sector, one of the major challenges is to early predict carcass and meat quality and to jointly satisfy the multiple expectations of the various stakeholders. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine if the relationships among carcass, nutritional and sensory qualities established previously by Ellies-Oury et al. (2016) might be generalized to different type of animals.The Longissimus thoracis muscles of 32 young Charolais bulls were analyzed in terms of sensory and nutritional quality (lipid content and fatty acid composition). These parameters of interest were linked together and to animal performances by using a clustering of variables.Longissimus thoracis sensory and nutritional qualities appear sometimes antagonistic. Indeed, some “positive” sensory descriptors (juiciness, overall appreciation, overall flavor and overall odor) are negatively related to PUFA proportions. PUFA proportions are positively associated with carcass weight but in the same time with rancid/fish flavors. Moreover, CLA and trans MUFA proportions are positively associated with the “negative” descriptors of greasy feel and residues. To finish, carcass weight and ADG are negatively associated with some “positive” sensory descriptors except tenderness.It can be concluded from this work that these relationships, that were already established in previous works, are robust between experiments.In order to highlight robust and generalizable relationships in different contexts, it is now appropriate to apply this method to a larger database containing different traits and various characteristics of breed, slaughter ages, animal types, fattening practices, …