A methodological approach to assess the interactions between animal performances, nutritional value and sensory quality of meat

Animal performances (including feed efficiency), nutritional value and sensory quality of meat were characterized for young bulls of 3 breeds and 4 feeding regimes. Variables of each element of this triptych were arranged into homogeneous clusters in order to constitute different synthetic quantitative variable, which were further combined in Global Indexes. If the animal performances Global Index (GI) appears negatively correlated to the Sensory one, the Nutritional GI could be either positively or negatively correlated to the Sensory GI, depending on the way of expressing the fatty acid composition of meat. This method allows clearly discriminating breeds and feeding regimes in terms of the studied variables, and appears useful to contribute to pilot animal breeding for a better tradeoff management in the bovine sector