| dc.description.abstract | This study was designed to determine the actual postfabrication storage time or aging time for beef rib/loin cuts sold at retail. Postmortem aging of beef is a commonly accepted practice in today’s industry; however, not all members of the meat industry are utilizing this practice to its full advantage. In the surveyed retail stores, subprimals from the rib/loin regions were followed through the distribution channel to final retail package and into the meat case to measure true post-fabrication to consumer time to assess what proportion of beef was aged <14 d in the retail channel across six market regions in the southern United States. Subprimal aging time at the retail establishments surveyed averaged 26.3 d, with a range of 3 to 225 d. It was also found that 79.0% of the surveyed beef product had no production claims.
Where possible, scanning information from retailers was used to measure when products arrived and when they were utilized at the store. This information allowed for a more in-depth analysis of possible trends in retail handling across four market regions in the southern United States. Data were gathered through various software inventory-tracking systems and surveys were conducted of the back room of individual stores. Also, information on weekly online retail store advertised specials was tracked to gain insight into beef items that retailers are featuring. The majority of the aging time observed in this study took place from the packer to the retailer and not from the retailer to the consumer, which had 15.2% of boxed subprimals aged <14 d. The weekly beef feature items that were collected seemed to suggest that beef items are more heavily featured around March-April and October-December when other meat items may be a more popular choice for the consumer. | en |
