Instrumental colour classification of veal carcasses.

Three experiments, involving over 56 000 veal carcasses, were carried out to develop a method for instrumental colour classification of veal carcasses at 45 min post mortem with the Minolta CR300. The method should produce results similar to those of the 10-point colour-system, which is currently in use in The Netherlands. In the first experiment, the colour of veal carcasses was visually assessed by three observers and instrumentally measured with two Minolta CR300 devices. The average of the results of the three observers and the two Minolta devices were used for discriminant analysis to analyse yield classification rules, which allowed to assignment of the carcasses to classes of the 10-point colour-system. Identical classifications for Minolta and observer were obtained for 63.2% of the carcasses. In the second and third experiment, the classification rules with the Minolta CR300 were used to predict the colour class. For the new samples, identical classification results were obtained for 50-55% of the carcasses. In 41-44% of the carcasses the classification results differed by less than one class. The results show that the Minolta CR300 is under practical conditions able to predict the 10-point colour classes and can be used for on-line colour classification in a slaughterhouse.