Freezing meat is a common practice to alleviate pressure on cold chain management and to increase the consistency of the aging period. The pandemic pushed the need for freezing due to limited cooler storage for small meat processors. However, freezing was widely thought to not only negatively impact the overall quality of meat, but also to negatively impact the consumer’s perception of quality.

 While studies evaluating freezing are prevalent, most have used varied postmortem aging times to facilitate study design. The lack of a comprehensive study evaluating equally aged fresh and frozen steaks prior to this study prevented a true understanding of the impact of freezing to help provide guidance to the industry. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the eating quality and consumer perception differences between fresh and frozen beefsteaks of three equal aging periods.

 Beef strip loins were selected from a processing plant on two processing dates, one week apart to allow for a one-week freezing period to represent the fresh and frozen treatments. All subprimals were brought back to Kansas State University and were immediately sliced into steaks, and aged for 21 days, 28 days, or 35 days at refrigerated conditions. After aging, the frozen samples were frozen for one week at -4˚F in a commercial freezer while the fresh samples finished the designated aging period. On the same day, all samples were aged to the same period of time either with or without a freezing step.

Therefore, on exactly 21 days, 28 days and 35 days of aging fresh and frozen samples were fed to untrained consumers and trained sensory panelists, sheared for shear force and powdered for lab assays. For consumer panels, the first four steaks were given with no additional information, while the last four steaks were served with the labels “previously frozen” or “fresh, never frozen” to determine if the additional information influenced their perception of quality.

The consumer sensory panelists rated the frozen samples as more tender than the fresh samples but found no other differences for juiciness or flavor. Surprisingly, this tenderness difference did not impact the overall liking scores for the consumers. Even when given additional information, the perception of quality was not impacted as the consumers rated the samples similarly regardless of the labeling information.

Similar to the consumer sensory results, the trained sensory panelists rated the frozen samples higher than the fresh counterparts for overall tenderness, however, the fresh samples scored higher for initial and sustained juiciness. Supporting the sensory data, the frozen steaks had lower shear force values regardless of the aging period indicating the frozen samples were more tender. However, the fresh samples resulted in lower purge and cook loss indicating more water holding capacity.

While some meat quality factors were impacted by freezing, the overall eating quality and perception of quality were not negatively impacted. Similarly, informing consumers of the frozen/fresh state of the product prior to evaluation did not alter their assessment, providing evidence that for consumers, “fresh, never frozen” labeling may not be impactful. Based on this study, the actual eating quality and perception of quality is not impacted by freezing beefsteaks of equal aging periods. Therefore, frozen meat should not be discounted due to the eating quality or perception of the quality of beefsteaks. However, the increase in purge loss due to freezing could result in some economic loss and should be taken into consideration. This study can provide guidance for the industry to make supported decisions on cold chain management strategies.

 How to cite:

Beyer, E. S., Decker, L. K., Kidwell, E. G., McGinn, A. L., Chao, M. D., Zumbaugh, M. D., Vipham, J. L. & O'Quinn, T. G., (2024) “Evaluation of Fresh and Frozen Beef Strip Loins of Equal Aging Periods for Palatability Traits”, Meat and Muscle Biology 8(1): 16903, 1-13. doi: https://doi.org/10.22175/mmb.16903