Composition of beef carcasses: III. The reliability and use of visual assessment

Abstract

SUMMARY The technique of visual appraisal of intact sides of beef was used on most of the carcasses previously described in Parts I and II of this series. Tests of discrimination and consistency were carried out for each of the judges taking part, and their assessments were compared with the results of subsequent dissection of the carcasses. It was found that visual appraisal of the subcutaneous fat content of a carcass was very good, especially with the aid of photographic standards, though a curious tendency to match the standards consistently to carcasses of a higher proportion of fat than those used for the photographs themselves was apparent. This did not materially affect the use that can be made of visual judgements in predicting fat content and it was found that expert judgement alone is capable of predictive accuracy roughly equal to that obtained from simple measurements, though not as good as that obtained by partial dissection, as described in Part II. Equations are given for the prediction of carcass composition, using visual appraisal in combination with other variables. The appraisal of conformation was not so successful; reasons for this are advanced, and suggestions made for future improvement.