# Metal Color, Marbling, and the Evaluation of Defects in Beef and Port at the Point of Purchase
## 1 Introduction
Thus, the connection between the economics of production and quality has been one of the main goals in the meat industry. This requires the implementation of various approaches for reducing setup costs (and time) to improve process quality. One of these approaches is the Taguchi method [24; 25; 26]. This method is a specific statistical technique for implementing robust processes in product design and improvement in products quality at a relatively low cost [27]. Furthermore, the Taguchi approach, in the form of the Taguchi loss function (TLF), has not been widely used in the food sector. Study [28] gives an overview of how to combine food products or food-related processes with the TLF. Bearing in mind the limited studies connecting the color, marbling, and defects of beef and pork using the same assessment method, the authors identified this as a research gap. Therefore, the main objective of this paper was to determine the preferred levels of meat color and marbling as decision-making triggers for purchasing meat and implementing the TLF. In this paper, the authors compared three intrinsic characteristics that are found to be the most important in relation to consumer opinions: meat color, marbling, and the presence of defects. Therefore, two working hypotheses were proposed:  
1. The implementation of the TLF for the control of the color and marbling variations of beef and pork is possible. 2. Four typical types of defects of beef and pork will affect consumers' choices. A model of a standard with seven levels of color and marbling and four types of defects results in an appropriate differentiation among beef and pork chops. Thus, in this study, new color and marbling levels were developed for domestic beef and pork and were then related to samples. Here, it is very important to declare that these color and marbling chips were experimentally provided and were used only for the purposes of this research study. These chips are useful but have the limitation of corresponding to a limited number of beef and pork samples. Since standards are different in different countries, there is no strictly defined, mandatory number of levels of one characteristic, especially marbling. This is expected, since in different countries, regulations, consumers' demands, breeding systems, and breeds of animals are different. The AUS-MEAT Reference Standards include eleven levels of marbling, where the two starting levels show a \"0 score\" of marbling [12]. On the other hand, the USDA Quality Grade and Yield Grade contains six levels of marbling categorized into three groups: \"USDA Select\", for beef chops with a slight and small level of marbling; \"USDA Choice\", for beef with a modest and moderate level of marbling; and \"USDA Prime\", for beef with slightly abundant and moderately abundant levels of marbling. Finally, the Japanese marble score scale (BMS scale) presents ten images with increasing marbling scores, ranging from 3 to 12 [15]. A score of 3 presents the basic minimum of marbling a steak should have, and 12 stands for a steak that is almost white with marbling (because BMS scores of 1 and 2 show almost no marbling, and as such, they are not considered). This Japanese scale is based on Wagyu beef, which is characteristic of Japanese cattle. Due to the lack of Serbian standards for marbling levels of beef, the authors decided to combine these three most common standards and create seven levels of beef color and marbling for experimental uses. Color and marbling chips were created based on instrumental measurements of experimental samples using a Computer Vision System (CVS) adopted from study [29] with slight modifications. These CVS-generated color measurements better represented the actual color of meat product samples as perceived by trained/experienced panelists. In a study by [PERSON] et al., it was clearly shown that the CVS methodology is not only more accurate and precise for measuring the color of uniformly colored samples, but that it is especially better for bi-colored and non-uniformly colored meat.