# Metal Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Port at the Point of Purchase
## 4 Conclusions  
Using consumer preferences and an image-based survey, it was observed that consumers in Serbia had similar strategies for choosing beef and pork. Participants strictly avoided blood splash cuts of both beef and pork. After pieces of beef with blood defects, consumers gave \"dark-cutting beef\" chops the highest score of unacceptance. Likewise, pale pork was not acceptable to consumers. When it comes to fat cover, consumers had the same opinions and decisions about beef and pork. They did not consider seam fat and a lack of marbling to be serious defects, especially for pork chops.  
The Taguchi method determines color and marbling as limits of quality variation in fresh meat using loss functions. The method is fast, low-cost, robust, portable, and very interesting for the purposes of cost reduction analysis. It is also manageable and easily adaptable to other meat types and consumers from different regions or countries. The final functions obtained from the color values and marbling scores justify to a certain extent the effectiveness of this technique in visualizing consumer tolerance. The results suggest that certain values of quality parameters could become a clear sign for potential consumer rejection. Consequently, the application of the TLF could enable the development of a relatively simple method to predict beef and pork quality loss in relation to unsatisfied consumers.  
It would be interesting to expand the area of investigation considering other quality attributes of meat and meat products, including health, nutritional, environmental, cultural, etc., aspects of cost.  
Conceptualization, I.D. and S.S. ([PERSON]); writing--original draft, S.S. ([PERSON]) and I.D.; data curation, writing--review and editing, I.D., I.T., V.Z.D., T.B., S.S. ([PERSON]), S.S. ([PERSON]) and J.C.; supervision, I.D. and I.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research was supported by the Ministry of Science, Technological Development, and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia, according to the provisions of the Contract on research financing in 2024 (No 451-03-66/2024-03/200050) dated 5 February 2024.  
**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Defects** & **(Mean \(\pm\) Std. Deviation)** & **Defects** & **Mean \(\pm\) Std. Deviation** & **Mean Difference** & **Sig.** \\ \hline (I) & & (J) & & (I–J) & \\ \hline Pale pork & \(212\pm 48.526\) & Blood spotting & \(149\pm 57.529\) & \(63\) & \(0.128\) \\  & & Excess seam fat & \(407\pm 55.127\) & \(-195\) * & \(0.007\) \\  & & Lack of marbling & \(503\pm 47.812\) & \(-291\) * & \(0.003\) \\ \hline Blood spotting & \(149\pm 57.529\) & Pale pork & \(212\pm 48.526\) & \(-63\) & \(0.128\) \\  & & Excess seam fat & \(407\pm 55.127\) & \(-258\) * & \(0.002\) \\  & & Lack of marbling & \(503\pm 47.812\) & \(-354\) * & \(0.001\) \\ \hline Excess seam fat & \(407\pm 55.127\) & Pale pork & \(212\pm 48.526\) & \(195\) * & \(0.007\) \\  & & Blood spotting & \(149\pm 57.529\) & \(258\) * & \(0.002\) \\  & & Lack of marbling & \(503\pm 47.812\) & \(-96\) & \(0.253\) \\ \hline Lack of marbling & \(503\pm 47.812\) & Pale pork & \(212\pm 48.526\) & \(291\) * & \(0.003\) \\  & & Blood spotting & \(149\pm 57.529\) & \(354\) * & \(0.001\) \\  & & Excess seam fat & \(407\pm 55.127\) & \(96\) & \(0.253\) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.  
\end{table}
Table 8: Number of pork defect selections at the point of purchase (N = 552).  
**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.  
**Data Availability Statement:** The data used to support the findings of this study are included within the article.  
**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflicts of interest.