The role of marbling in beef and lamb quality - development, importance, measurement, harmonisation
This session, presented at the EAAP meeting in Florence on September 2nd, 2024, described research on marbling or intramuscular fat in beef and lamb. An overview of marbling development was presented with the important roles of genetics in terms of intramuscular adipocytes proliferation and location and muscle growth, along with the role of nutrition and animal age during finishing. The advent of new tools to measure intramuscular fat on-line has led to the development of a new Meat Standards Australian model to predict the eating quality of lamb based on balancing lean meat yield and intramuscular fat. Other technologies based on general lipid chemistry of muscle tissue such as Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS) shows great promise to classify both flavour liking and the overall quality grade given by consumers to cook beef cuts. Finally, chemical intramuscular fat is proposed as the best method for underpinning future carcass grading schemes that currently use visual appraisal of marbling.