In Greece, all cattle carcasses produced from a variety of breed types are classified according to the SEUROP system. The objective of this study was to evaluate Greek carcass characteristics such as carcass weight and age of slaughter based on SEUROP classification system (muscle conformation and fat deposit classes) and to describe the effect of main factors such as breed, gender, year of slaughter, farm’s geographical region and month of slaughter on these carcass parameters. It is the first study that evaluates local breeds, revealing the wide diversity of the Greek cattle breeding conditions. The analyzed records consisted of 323,046 carcasses from 2011 to 2017. All the examined factors significantly affected the mean carcass weight (298.9 ± 0.2 kg) and the mean slaughter age (559.1 ± 0.3 days). Carcasses from beef meat breeds had on average higher mean carcass weight while the local breeds had lower. The mean slaughter age and carcass weight were higher in winter than in summer. The local and the dairy breeds were classified in similar muscle conformation classes. Finally, Greek cattle carcasses from almost all regions were satisfactory for their quality carcass traits with good muscle conformation (R, O and U class) and low-fat deposit (class 1 to 3).
IntroductIonM eat, especially that originated from beef, is considered of utmost importance part of human diet due to its valuable nutrient content (Scollan et al., 2006). Meat beef production is, also, one of the most valuable driver of world's livestock economy, with significant contribution to local, national and international trade, economy and society cohesion. The European Union is ranked at the third position in beef production after United States and Brazil. Taken together the beef production of the aforementioned countries represents roughly the 50% of world's beef (FAO, 2021).Beef carcass characteristics affect not only meat quality but also farmers' profitability and consumers' preferences. Overall meat quality is determined by a variety of factors including among others intramuscular fat, water absorption, color and pH. Marbling, which is defined as the amount and spatial distribution of visible white flecks of intramuscular fat being present in the lean of the longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle, is considered, also, as an important organoleptic characteristic affecting many qualitive and palatability characteristics of meat such as color, tenderness, juiciness
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