New approaches for improving tenderness, quality, and consistency of beef

Abstract

In an effort to increase U.S. domestic beef demand, beef industry leaders have recommended the development and implementation of Total Quality Management-like systems to enhance product quality and consistency. This review outlines the application of quality management practices and process control to improve tenderness and quality of beef. Adoption of a quality management philosophy for improvement of product quality requires a shift of focus from issues of greatest concern to producers to issues that are of greatest concern to consumers. Development of “alliances” and branded beef programs, in which producers maintain some share of ownership through the entire production/marketing chain helps shift producer focus to issues that are important to consumers, provides a clearer economic signal encouraging improvement of product quality, and provides an opportunity for the application of quality management principles to facilitate the improvement of beef quality. Application of a quality management system for improving beef tenderness and quality requires identification of “control points” and application of process control to prevent quality shortfalls, verification of conformance to specifications for tenderness/quality, and identification of methods for improving tenderness and quality attributes of nonconforming products. A prototype quality management system for ensuring beef tenderness is described. This prototype system involves four “control points” (genetic inputs, preslaughter cattle management, early postmortem management, and postmortem aging) at which inputs/processes are controlled to improve tenderness, a verification step based on a tenderness measurement obtained at 1 to 3 d postmortem, and the use of tenderization technologies to improve tenderness of nonconforming products. Application of the prototype system reduced the expected rate of nonconformance to tenderness specifications from about one in four, for both top sirloin steaks and strip loin steaks, to about 1 in 25 and 1 in 100 for top sirloin steaks and strip loin steaks, respectively. Use of process control in a quality management system may be an effective approach for improving the tenderness and quality of beef.