Temporal sensory liking methods: an investigation with beef steaks from different production systems
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Full Text E-thesis
Date
2022
Authors
Corcoran, Linda
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Publisher
University College Cork
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Abstract
Research on the impact of the diet of the animal on consumer liking of beef has yielded conflicting results. The aim of this study was to apply the traditional liking method and two temporal liking (TL) methods (free and structured) to determine consumer liking of beef derived from animals that were fed grain (GF), grass silage and grain (SG) or grazed grass (GG) during finishing and use different methods to determine the data quality and consumers variability. Three separate panels of regular beef-eating consumers (n=51; n=52; n=50) were recruited from students and staff at Teagasc Food Research Centre, Dublin, Ireland, to assess the liking of striploin steaks from animals fed either GF, SG, or GG, respectively.
Results of chapter 2 revealed significant differences (p≤0.05) in liking between diets in terms of overall liking, juiciness, and tenderness using the free TL method. These effects were not observed using the structured TL or traditional liking methods. Further statistical analysis of the TL methods found that the free TL method yielded more discriminative data than the structured TL method, with significant differences (p≤0.05) found for both overall liking and juiciness. Consumers also found the free TL method easier to perform compared to the structured TL method. The evolution of scores over time (changes in consumer scores over the scoring period) was significant (p≤0.05) for all attributes using the free TL method. These results show that free TL may give rise to new opportunities to elicit more in-depth insight from consumer studies using meat.
In addition to answering the research question, TL data also has the potential to give new insight into consumer behaviour in terms of how people approach temporal
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sensory liking methods. Chapter 3 utilises this consumer behaviour approach to look at three temporal liking studies applying both structured and free TL in terms of data quality, presence or absence of temporality, and correlations between consumer response and self-reported difficulty. Interestingly, the assessment of temporality found that consumers who showed the ability to provide temporal data did not provide it for all attributes studied. The analyses have also demonstrated areas where fatigue and the natural variability in consumer responses may impact data quality.
Chapter 4 further analyses data from study 2 from chapters 2 and 3 as this had no missing data. Studies 1 and 3 had missing data due to consumers not providing responses to all time points and attributes during sensory testing. Two TL methods (free and structured) and a traditional liking method were employed to generate data from consumers on their liking of beef steaks derived from a grain supplementation diet for four attributes (overall liking, flavour, tenderness, juiciness). Consumers spent the most time and gave the most responses to the attribute flavour. High levels of variability were found within each liking method. High correlations were also found between attributes within each liking method. For the structured TL, overall liking was found to be significant over time. In addition, the free TL and traditional liking were found to be significantly different from each other (p≤0.05) for liking and flavour attributes and the structured TL and traditional liking were found to be significantly different from each other for flavour. However, the two temporal liking methods did not differ from each other. Two clusters of consumers were found for each attribute, one who slightly liked the attribute and one who slightly disliked the attribute. Some consumers changed cluster groups between attributes. This study has shown that the choice of TL method may make a difference on the data elicited.
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Keywords
Sensory science , Sensory evaluation , Sensory of meat , Temporal liking , Temporal sensory methods , Cattle feeding , Grass vs grain
Citation
Corcoran, L. C. 2022. Temporal sensory liking methods: an investigation with beef steaks from different production systems. MSc Thesis, University College Cork.