o:6624 Meat Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Pork at the Point of Purchase en Intentions to purchase meat and repeat purchasing patterns will depend on the consumer’s perception of intrinsic and extrinsic quality cues. In order to discover consumers’ insights into the quality of pork and beef, the main objective of this study was to investigate meat color, marbling, and types of fresh meat defects. A total of 50 samples of meat were analyzed for three quality characteristics on different levels. This study applied a statistical calculation of a loss function invented by Taguchi. The results showed the values of variations in meat color and marbling that present the limits of consumers’ tolerance. Based on the obtained results, it was determined that the tolerable level of color variations of beef is 3.61, while for pork, this limit is 2.00. The most preferred marbling percentages were 21% and 5.74% for beef and pork, respectively. On the other hand, the negative effect of defects was the strongest for “dark cutting” for beef and “blood spotting” for pork loins. beef; pork; meat quality; consumer’s tolerance; Taguchi loss 1552099 10.3390/app14156797 2024-12-17T07:31:27.698Z 44 yes 46 Sara Simunović Institute of Meat Hygiene and Technology Meat Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Pork at the Point of Purchase https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8280-5149 Igor Tomašević Department of Food Safety and Quality Management, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade Meat Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Pork at the Point of Purchase Meat Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Pork at the Point of Purchase person Vesna Ž. Đorđević Institute of Meat Hygiene and Technology Meat Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Pork at the Point of Purchase person https://orcid.org/0009-0008-5187-4089 Tatjana Baltić Institute of Meat Hygiene and Technology Meat Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Pork at the Point of Purchase person https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0496-3133 Stefan Simunović Institute of Meat Hygiene and Technology Meat Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Pork at the Point of Purchase person https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7249-7891 Jelena Ćirić Institute of Meat Hygiene and Technology Meat Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Pork at the Point of Purchase person https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8118-7676 Ilija Djekić Department of Food Safety and Quality Management, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade Meat Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Pork at the Point of Purchase person application/pdf 11784372 https://unilib.phaidrabg.rs/o:6624 no yes 19 70 1552253 71A01 Applied sciences 6797 14 MDPI MDPI 2024-08