ABSTRACT
Providing consistently high-quality and wholesome meat products to consumers, the ultimate end-users of these products, is crucial to the continued success of the meat industry (Smith et al. 2008a). Numerous studies have reported that consumers are willing to pay premiums for meat products with guaranteed eating quality (palatability or often simply called “taste” by consumers) (Miller et al. 2001; Shackelford et al. 2001; Polkinghorne 2006; Polkinghorne and Thompson 2010). The production of high-quality meat is a complicated multistep process, which can be also called “a whole value chain” as each individual step from live animal production/ management to postslaughter events can contribute to inuence meat quality. In this regard,
15.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 431 15.2 Producing Beef and Lamb with High Quality .............................................. 432
15.2.1 Critical Postharvest Practices ........................................................... 432 15.2.1.1 Control of pH and Temperature Decline ........................... 432 15.2.1.2 Carcass Suspension and Stretch ......................................... 434 15.2.1.3 Postmortem Aging ............................................................. 435
15.2.2 Beef Grading and Quality Assurance Programs .............................. 435 15.2.3 Lamb Meat Grading and Quality Assurance Programs ................... 441
15.3 Producing Pork with High Eating Quality ...................................................444 15.3.1 Optimizing Pork Quality ..................................................................445
