Meat eating quality could become more and more important in the future in terms of our unique selling point. That was the message from Donagh Berry at Tuesday’s Teagasc beef conference in Mayo.

“Other countries have caught up very fast with traceability and tagging, so we need to move on to the next level. We believe that one of these avenues could be meat eating quality.

The Angus and Hereford sires came out on top

"For the last few decades, farmers have selected on quantity rather than quality when it comes to bull selection, heavier carcase weights, better confirmation, while meat eating quality hasn’t been to the fore in the decision-making process," he said.

If society moves towards eating less meat, farmers need to make sure that anything they do eat is good. Teagasc and ICBF, using a trained tasting panel, have assessed 5,500 animals for tenderness, flavour and juiciness. The Angus and Hereford sires came out on top with Simmental sires coming out lowest for meat eating quality.

The next step is to include meat eating quality in genetic indices and hopefully in the future the market would pay more for animals sired by high meat eating quality bulls.