The dissection methods used at the ARC Meat Research Institute, Langford (MRI) and by the Meat and Livestock Commission (MLC) for beef carcass evaluation were compared.

When account was taken of small differences in the way tissues are defined in the two methods, they gave essentially the same results for the important aspects of carcass composition. Twenty carcasses with 60 to 120 g subcutaneous fat per kg side weight were selected from those in the serial slaughter phase of the MLC's beef breed evaluation programme. The cattle had been slaughtered and dressed at a commercial abattoir on the same site as the MLC's Central Carcass Evaluation Unit, Blisworth. The left sides were dissected by the MLC and the right sides at the MRI after being taken there as quarters (which resulted in a greater evaporative weight loss). Mean values for lean, bone, intermuscular fat and subcutaneous fat (as g/kg in the side) did not differ significantly between the methods and the slopes of the regressions of MRI on MLC proportionate composition values were not significantly different from 1·0.