The main factors contributing to pork eating satisfaction are considered to be tenderness, juiciness and flavour. Tenderness has been identified as being the most important of these factors in terms of variability and perceived deterioration over recent years. Previous research has shown that the eating quality of meat may be influenced by the balance between the rates of lean tissue growth and fat deposition respectively, and this in turn may be influenced by dietary manipulation and/or genotype and sex of animal. It has been suggested that lean tissue growth rate (LTGR) - influenced by daily liveweight gain - fundamentally affects meat tenderness in pigs (Warkup and Kempster, 1991). In beef cattle studies, faster growing animals have been shown to produce more tender meat (Whipple et al, 1990). Previous work has demonstrated that meat from ad libitum fed pigs tends to be more tender and juicy than restrictively fed pigs (MLC, 1988; Ellis et al, 1990). The objectives of this study were to evaluate the relative importance of lean and fat tissue growth on pork eating quality.