Has breed any effect on beef sensory quality?

International audience; A total of 436 young cattle from 15 cattle breeds were reared in as similar conditions as possible to evaluate the impact of breed on sensory quality of beef from longissimus muscle determined by sensory analysis. Two statistical methods for processing the sensory data were compared. The analysis of variance with or without the panelist effect gave similar conclusions indicating that the robustness of the results was not dependent on the method chosen. The 4 meat descriptors (tenderness, juiciness, beef flavor and off-flavor) placed breeds into 5 groups using an unsupervised classification (hierarchical ascending classification). Aberdeen Angus, Highland and Jersey, that have a high lipid content in the muscle studied, differed from the other breeds in that they had a higher beef flavour. The dual-purpose and rustic breeds, Simmental, Casina and Marchigiana, produced significantly less juicy and less tender meat than that from breeds selected for meat production. Overall, despite significant differences previously identified for animal, carcass, muscle and beef traits for the same animals, differences in sensory scores between most of the breeds were small, with only significant differences between the few breeds that had extreme sensory profiles (such as Simmental and Pirenaica).