The Effect of Finishing Diet on Consumer Perception of Enhanced and Non-Enhanced Honduran Beef

Abstract

The effects of experimental finishing diets and enhancement were tested to determine if they could improve Honduran beef palatability. Fifteen enhanced (ENH) and non-enhanced (NE) paired loins from 7 different finishing diets (n = 210 loins) were fed to Honduran consumers (n = 288). Diets consisted of a grass-finished control (CON) or diets with the inclusion of distiller’s dry grain (DDG), palm kernel meal (PKM), PKM replication (PKMR), sorghum (SORG), soybean meal and corn (SBMC), or sugarcane (SC). An interaction (P 0.05). Without enhancement, CON was rated more tender (P 0.05) juiciness scores between CON, DDG, PKM, and PKMR; however, CON was rated juicier (P 0.05) between CON, DDG, PKM, PKMR, and SBMC, and CON was liked more (P 0.05) overall liking and WTP values between CON, DDG, PKM, PKMR, and SBMC, while SORG and SC were liked less overall (P < 0.05) than CON, which reduced (P < 0.05) WTP values. Experimental diets in conjunction with enhancement were able to improve the consumers’ perception of palatability traits, acceptability, and WTP.

Keywords

• Honduras
• Beef
• palatability
• enhancement
• finishing diet