Consumer flavour liking contributes the most to sensory overall liking of Australian lamb

Untrained consumer-determined sensory scores of tenderness, juiciness, flavour liking, and overall liking possess a level of dependency due to poorer consumer ability to discriminate between these traits. Given that overall liking is strongly correlated to all traits, this study evaluated the contributions of sensory traits to the overall liking scores of Australian lamb. Tenderness, juiciness, flavour liking and overall liking of a range of lamb cuts were assessed by untrained Australian consumers (n = 18,720) following Meat Standards Australia protocols. The most important contributor to lamb overall liking was flavour liking (44.7%), followed by tenderness (28.3%) and juiciness (27.0%) (P < 0.05; R² = 0.88). The contribution of the sensory traits to overall liking varied between meat quality categories, although the contribution of juiciness varied minimally. The contribution of flavour liking to overall liking became more important as loin intramuscular fat content increased. Whilst small differences in the contribution of tenderness and juiciness were present between cooking methods, untrained consumers evaluated overall liking in a similar manner regardless of cut type, demonstrating consumers' inherent ability to consistently evaluate meat products.