ABSTRACT
The ‘experience qualities’ of food products are those that can only be verified after purchase and consumption (Ford, 1988). Therefore, verifying experience qualities in products prior to consumption proves to be a challenging obstacle that the beef industry faces. The three primary factors associated with identifying the experience quality of beef are tenderness, juiciness and flavour (Neely, 1988), otherwise known collectively as ‘palatability’. In the 2001 National Beef Quality Audit, five different sectors of the industry were asked to define eating satisfaction (Igo, 2013). The most common terms associated were as follows:
1. Tenderness (63.8% of government and allied industries, 44.1% of feeders, 65.4% of packers, 52.1% of food service operators and 66.7% of retailers);
2. Flavour (57.5% of government and allied industries, 53.8% of packers, 62.5% of food service operators and 70% of retailers).
