Image analysis as a tool for beef grading

ABSTRACT

Meat marbling is related to meat flavour, juiciness and tenderness and is directly related to the intramuscular fat content. The term ‘Marbled’ refers to the presence of streaks of adipose tissue between the bundles of muscle fibres in the skeletal muscle. Meat with high marbling values is expected to have better sensory quality. Therefore, there is a growing interest in developing methods and techniques for estimating and measuring intramuscular fat (meat marbling), that is, to evaluate meat quality. Digital image processing technologies are an asset for quantifying meat marbling because they are non-invasive, less costly and environmentally sustainable. This paper presents an automatic methodology, based on image processing techniques, to identify and to locate the beef in the image and to calculate the marbling measures. The tests realised showed that it is possible to use image analysis in colour photographs of beefsteaks to automatically extract the marbling measures and to evaluate the beef quality. However, to develop more accurate algorithms, larger training and testing sets must be used.

KEYWORDS:

• Marbling
• beef quality
• image processing
• automatic segmentation

Acknowledgments

This project is supported by national funds through the ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and co-financed by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), through the partnership agreement Portugal2020 - PDR, under the project PDR2020-101-030748: Valor Jarmelista.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

C. M. R. Caridade

Cristina M.R. Caridade is Assistant Professor in Mathematics Department at Institute of Engineering, Polytechnic of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal. She received his BSc degree in Mathematics from University of Coimbra, MSC and PhD in Applied Mathematics from University of Porto. Her current research interests include image processing and ICT education.

C. D. Pereira

Carlos Dias Pereira, has a degree in Veterinary Medicine-University of Lisbon, an MSc in Food Science-University of Reading and a PhD in Food Science and Engineering- University of Santiago de Compostela. Currently is a full professor at the School of Agriculture of the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra and has been coordinator of 15 R&D projects.

A. F. Pires

Arona Figueroa Pires graduated in Industrial Chemistry and has an MSc in Forensic Chemistry by the Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra. She is currently a research fellow of the project Mobfood at the Polytechnic of Coimbra where she performs investigation related with recovery a valorization of industrial food waste. She was previously a research fellow at the University of Évora and at the University of Beira Interior.

N. G. Marnotes

Natalí García Marnotes graduated in Biology and a has an MSc in Advanced Biotechnology by the University of A Coruña. Formerly she worked as a researcher in the project Lacties: Innovation, Eco-Efficiency and Safety in SMEs in the dairy sector, at the Polytechnic of Coimbra. Currently, she works for the National Association of Dairy Manufacturers (ANIL) studying the reduction of salt content in commercial cheeses.

J. F. Viegas

Jorge Ferreira Viegas has technical degree in food analysis and is currently responsible for the management of the laboratories of the Department of Food Science and Technology of the School of Agriculture of the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra.