Beef quality study looks at public perceptions
behind public perceptions of meat quality, in order to better plan
future business strategies and establish consistent labelling.
A methodology for the classification and evaluation of beef carcasses and meat produced in Navarre, Spain has already been devised, and this, claim the researchers, should provide a good knowledge base for phyiscal-chemcial and sensorial meat characteristics.
According to scientists, the next stage is to find out the level of acceptability of the meat by the consumer, a study that is currently being undertaken by the researchers. The scientists are comparing systems of evaluation for carcasses in the United States and Europe, and attempting to assess consumer perceptions of beef quality.
The ultimate aim is to design a system of accurate information for consumers.
The study, entitled "Attributes of meat quality for the consumer and its relation to the classification systems of bovine carcasses in Spain and in the USA," is being carried out by researchers at the Public University of Navarre and the University of Illinois. In addition, Spanish beef processors Vacuno de Navarra and Cooperativa del Vacuno have been involved in the initiative.
Begun as a collaboration in 1993, the initiative hopes to make significant advances in the knowledge of meat, and establish useful technical improvements in its production and processing.
To achieve this, the physical and chemical characteristics of beef have been analysed, such as collagen and instrumental hardness. Beef from the Pyrenees breed of cattle has been used in the experiment, and compared with the Aberdeen Angus breed, as obtained, controlled and analysed by the University of Illinois (USA).
The scientists believe that this comparative analysis of beef from both breeds will help to identify the determinant factors in the consumer's perception of the quality of beef.
The beef industry has been hit hard by a series of global health scares, and public confidence desperately needs to be restored. The alleged link between BSE, or Mad Cow Disease, and the human disease variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), has cost the industry dearly.
The £3.2 billion UK beef industry has been most severely affected. Following reports of a possible link between BSE and new variant CJD in 1996, domestic sales of beef products declined immediately by 40 per cent, and in April 1996 household consumption was 26 per cent below the level seen in the previous year.
This change in public perceptions towards beef products following BSE has been global. Earlier this year, a poll in the US revealed one in every five American adults - 21 per cent - said that fear of mad cow disease would change their eating habits, while 78 per cent of these people said that they would eat less beef.
But Ken Conrad, a Canadian farmer who has been farming organically for decades, believes that the direct link between BSE and CJD, as sensationalised by media reports and governments, is erroneous.
"I agree with the decision to stop feeding animal byproducts to ruminants," he said. "However I do not believe that Mad Cow Disease, BSE or vCJD result due to the consumption of a mutated prion protein, or that it is transmitted from animal to animal."
Conrad contends that there is mounting evidence to suggest that the mutated prion is more than likely a pathologic product. In other words, it has resulted due to some form of outside environmental and/or biomedical interference.
"I am open to the theory that it may be due to injection of a biomedical antigen," said Conrad. "Such an injection, which bypasses natural protein censoring mechanisms, as well as other barriers that protect against infiltration of foreign biological agents, would present a more likely avenue of entry.
"However, the mutated prions ability to breach the blood/brain barrier, is questionable and yet to be demonstrated."
