Eating Quality of Australian Grass and Grain-Fed Lamb Equally Rated by US Consumers

• Published in: Foods Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 26
• Main Authors: Corlett, Maddison T, Pannier, Liselotte, Gardner, Graham E, Garmyn, Andrea J, Miller, Mark F, Pethick, David W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 20-12-2023; MDPI
• Subjects: aging; Barley; Beef; Chemical compounds; consumer; Consumers; Diet; Eating quality; Flavors; Grasses; International economic relations; Marketing research; Meat; Meat industry; Pasture; ruminants; sensory; Sensory evaluation; sheep; Australia; Texas; New Zealand; United States > US; ruminants; aging; diet; sensory; consumer; sheep
• ISSN: 2304-8158; 2304-8158
• DOI: 10.3390/foods13010026

Anecdotal suggestions that US consumers perceive Australian sheepmeat as more "gamey" or "stale" compared to US sheepmeat are potentially attributable to the extended chilled shipping times contributing to longer-aged meat and predominately pasture-fed grazing systems. This study evaluated the impact of diet and extended storage times on Australian sheepmeat using sensory scores as assessed by US consumers. Meat samples from Australian sheep (
= 80) fed a grass or grain diet were aged in a vacuum at 1-2 °C for 5, 21 or 45 days. Untrained consumers (
= 960) at Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Texas) assessed samples for overall liking, tenderness, juiciness and flavour using a scale from 1 (worst) to 100 (best). In general, US consumers scored grain- and grass-fed samples within the same storage period similarly (
> 0.05). Furthermore, storage from 5 to 21 days improved sensory scores by a maximum of 28.6 for tenderness for grass-fed outside cuts (
< 0.05), while storage for 21 to 45 days did not improve eating quality for most cuts of both diets (
> 0.05). This is an interesting finding for the Australian sheepmeat industry as long storage time has no negative effect on eating quality and US consumers enjoyed grass- and grain-fed sheepmeat equally.