Can calcium chloride injection facilitate the ageing-derived improvement in the quality of meat from culled dairy cows?

• There is a need to valorise beef from culled cows by quality enhancement.
• Ageing is a common way to tenderise initially tough meat.
• CaCl2 injection facilitates positive ageing effects on tenderness of such beef.
• However, CaCl2 injection enhances drip loss, off-flavour scores and fat oxidation.

This study investigated whether the positive effects of ageing on tenderness of meat from culled dairy cows can be facilitated by CaCl2. Injections of 250 mM CaCl2 solution (10% wt/wt) were performed on Longissimus dorsi samples from 32 7-yrs old cows. Samples were vacuum packaged and aged for 0, 1, 3, 5 and 7 days. Ageing alone produced lighter and less red meat with lower shear force, higher myofibrillar fragmentation and tenderness scores but also elevated lipid oxidation. For most traits investigated, CaCl2-injected meat exhibited similar ageing effects, but drip loss increased with age. The CaCl2-injected meat had a lower shear force and myofibrillar fragmentation increased more rapidly, but drip loss, off-flavour scores, colour stability and oxidative stability were inferior to untreated meat. Overall, it was found possible to accelerate tenderisation of such meat with CaCl2, but only at the cost of adverse effects in some other quality traits.