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Historically, consumer acceptance of beef was determined by tenderness. Developments in genetics and management over the last couple of decades have improved tenderness to the point that it is secondary to other factors in beef's taste. Flavor, however, is an extraordinarily complex taste attribute dependent on biological sensors in the mouth, sinus cavity, and jaws. The culinary industry has recently focused on innovative ways to give consumers new products satisfying their curiosity about different foods, especially proteins. Competition from plant-based, cell-based, and even other animal-based proteins provides diversity in consumers' ability to select a protein that satisfies their desire to include unique products in their diet. Consequently, the beef industry has focused on flavor for the last 10 to 15 years to determine whether it can provide the guardrails for beef consumption in the future. The U.S. beef industry formed a Flavor Working Group in 2012 composed of the authors listed here to investigate new and innovative ways to manage and measure beef flavor. The results of this working group have resulted in dozens of papers, presentations, abstracts, and symposia. The objective of this manuscript is to summarize the research developed by this working group and by others worldwide that have investigated methodologies that measure beef flavor. This paper will describe the strengths of the research in beef flavor measurement and point out future needs that might be identified as technology advances., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Beef flavor continues to be one of the largest drivers of beef demand and a differentiation point of beef from other competing proteins. Tenderness has long been identified as the most important palatability trait for consumer satisfaction. However, as technological advancements and industry practices evolve and improve in response to tenderness management, flavor has emerged as a key driver of consumer satisfaction. In response, the beef industry has recently invested in research focused on beef flavor development, measurement, and management to better understand the factors impacting flavor and help beef maintain this advantage. The current review paper is the second of two such papers focused on summarizing the present knowledge and identifying knowledge gaps. While the other review focuses on current practices related to beef flavor measurement, this review will cover research findings related to beef flavor management. Numerous production and product management factors influence beef flavor. Pre-harvest factors including marbling level, animal genetics/cattle type, diet, and animal age, can influence beef flavor. Moreover, numerous post-harvest product management factors, including product type, aging length and conditions, cookery methods, product enhancement, muscle-specific factors, packaging, retail display factors, and antimicrobial interventions, have all been evaluated for their impact on beef flavor characteristics. Results from numerous studies evaluating many of these factors will be outlined within this review in order to present management and production chain factors that can influence beef flavor., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The objective of this study was to examine effects of 4 levels of microalgae meal (All-G Rich, CCAP 4087/2; Alltech Inc., Nicholasville, KY) supplementation to the diet of finishing heifers on longissimus lumborum (LL) steak PUFA content, beef palatability, and color stability. Crossbred heifers ( = 288; 452 ± 23 kg initial BW) were allocated to pens (36 pens and 8 heifers/pen), stratified by initial pen BW (3,612 ± 177 kg), and randomly assigned within strata to 1 of 4 treatments: 0, 50, 100, and 150 g·heifer·d of microalgae meal. After 89 d of feeding, cattle were harvested and LL were collected for determination of fatty acid composition and Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF), trained sensory panel evaluation, and 7-d retail color stability and lipid oxidation analyses. Feeding microalgae meal to heifers increased (quadratic, < 0.01) the content of 22:6-3 and increased (linear, < 0.01) the content of 20:5-3. Feeding increasing levels of microalgae meal did not impact total SFA or MUFA ( > 0.25) but tended ( = 0.10) to increase total PUFA in a quadratic manner ( = 0.03). Total omega-6 PUFA decreased (linear, = 0.01) and total omega-3 PUFA increased (quadratic, < 0.01) as microalgae meal level increased in the diet, which caused a decrease (quadratic, < 0.01) in the omega-6:omega-3 fatty acid ratio. Feeding microalgae meal did not affect WBSF values or sensory panel evaluation of tenderness, juiciness, or beef flavor scores ( > 0.16); however, off-flavor intensity increased with increasing concentration of microalgae meal in the diet (quadratic, < 0.01). From d 5 through 7 of retail display, steaks from heifers fed microalgae meal had a reduced a* value and oxymyoglobin surface percentage, with simultaneous increased surface metmyoglobin formation (quadratic, < 0.01). Lipid oxidation analysis indicated that at d 0 and 7 of display, as the concentration of microalgae meal increased in the diet, the level of oxidation increased (quadratic, < 0.01). Muscle fiber type percentage or size was not influenced by the inclusion of microalgae meal in diets ( > 0.19); therefore, the negative effects of microalgae on color stability were not due to fiber metabolism differences. Feeding microalgae meal to finishing heifers improves PUFA content of beef within the LL, but there are adverse effects on flavor and color stability.

The objective of this study was to examine the effects of feeding microalgae meal (All-G Rich, CCAP 4087/2; Alltech Inc., Nicholasville, KY) to finishing heifers on 85% lean and 15% fat (85/15) ground beef PUFA content, palatability, and color stability. Crossbred heifers ( = 288; 452 ± 23 kg initial BW) were allocated to pens (36 pens and 8 heifers/pen), stratified by initial pen BW (3,612 ± 177 kg), and randomly assigned within strata to 1 of 4 treatments: 0, 50, 100, and 150 g·heifer·d of microalgae meal. After 89 d of feeding, a subset of heifers (3/pen) was harvested and the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius were collected for processing into ground beef. At 42 d postmortem, 85/15 ground beef was formulated and formed into 112-g patties and fatty acid composition, subjective palatability, and 96-h retail color stability analyses were conducted. Increasing dietary microalgae meal concentration increased ground beef 20:5-3 and 22:6-3 fatty acids (quadratic, < 0.01). There was a treatment × hour interaction for all color attributes ( < 0.01). On d 0, microalgae tended ( = 0.08) to decrease L*, but patties had similar L* values the remainder of display ( > 0.12). Feeding microalgae meal affected ( = 0.02) b* at 24 h and decreased (linear, = 0.08) b* at 48 h. From h 0 to 36 of display, microalgae affected redness of patties ( < 0.02), and from 48 to 72 h, microalgae meal decreased a* value (linear, < 0.04). Microalgae meal did not impact sensory panel firmness, overall tenderness, or juiciness scores ( > 0.20) but tended to affect ( = 0.10) cohesiveness scores. As the amount of microalgae meal fed to heifers increased, beef flavor intensity decreased (linear, < 0.01) and off-flavor intensity increased (quadratic, < 0.05). Surface oxymyoglobin and metmyoglobin were impacted by microalgae meal from 12 to 36 h of display ( < 0.01). From 48 to 84 h of display, feeding microalgae meal to heifers decreased (linear, < 0.09) surface oxymyoglobin and increased (linear, < 0.02) surface metmyoglobin of patties. Although feeding microalgae meal to heifers increases the PUFA content of 85/15 ground beef, there are undesirable effects on flavor and color stability.

Sensory analysis of ground LL samples representing 12 beef product categories was conducted in 3 different regions of the U.S. to identify flavor preferences of beef consumers. Treatments characterized production-related flavor differences associated with USDA grade, cattle type, finishing diet, growth enhancement, and postmortem aging method. Consumers (N=307) rated cooked samples for 12 flavors and overall flavor desirability. Samples were analyzed to determine fatty acid content. Volatile compounds produced by cooking were extracted and quantified. Overall, consumers preferred beef that rated high for beefy/brothy, buttery/beef fat, and sweet flavors and disliked beef with fishy, livery, gamey, and sour flavors. Flavor attributes of samples higher in intramuscular fat with greater amounts of monounsaturated fatty acids and lesser proportions of saturated, odd-chain, omega-3, and trans fatty acids were preferred by consumers. Of the volatiles identified, diacetyl and acetoin were most closely correlated with desirable ratings for overall flavor and dimethyl sulfide was associated with an undesirable sour flavor., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)