Prediction of sensory characteristics of beef by near-infrared spectroscopy

Sensory hardness, tenderness and juiciness of M. Longissimus dorsi muscles from 10 beef carcasses at three ageing stages were predicted by near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic analysis in the reflection (NIRR) and transmission modes (NIRT) during 14 days ageing at 2°C. Predicting the sensory variables hardness and tenderness from NIRR measurements using principal component regression (PCR), yielded correlation coefficients in the range 0·80-0·90. The root mean square errors of prediction for the predictions of hardness and tenderness were in the range 0·5-0·7, given in sensory assessment units. Juiciness was not well predicted. Prediction of sensory variables from NIRT measurements did not give satisfactory results. Including samples from all carcasses, cows and young bulls in the models resulted in good predictions from NIRR measurements of frozen and thawed samples. However, the best prediction results were generally obtained from separate calibrations of the samples from the bulls. The potential of NIR spectroscopy in the prediction of sensory variables in whole meat needs to be further investigated on a larger number of samples with different breeds, animals and process treatments included.