*Article* **The Meat Quality Characteristics of Holstein Calves: The Story of Israeli 'Dairy Beef'**

**Ariel Shabtay 1, Einav Shor-Shimoni 1, Ala Orlov 1, Rotem Agmon 1, Olena Trofimyuk 1, Ofir Tal <sup>2</sup> and Miri Cohen-Zinder 1,\***


**Abstract:** Global animal production systems are often criticized for their lack of sustainability and insufficient resilience to ensure food security. The 'farm-to-fork' approach aims at orienting food systems towards the creation of a positive environmental impact, nutritious, healthy, safe and sufficient foods, and fairer economic returns for primary producers. Many countries rely on an imported supply of live animals to fulfill their needs for fresh meat. In Israel, ~60% of the sources of fresh beef come from the import of live animals. In order to encourage sustainable beef production in Israel, the proportion of local beef should be raised at the expense of imported animals. However, for this to be achieved, the superior performance of local beef should be justified. The current study was conducted to compare between the meat quality characteristics of local (Israeli Holstein; N = 205) vs. imported (Australian; N = 169) animals. Generally, while the imported calves presented a higher dressing percentage (*p* < 0.0001), the local animals were characterized by tenderer meat (*p* < 0.0001), longer sarcomeres (*p* < 0.0001), higher a\* color attributes and pH (*p* < 0.001), superior cooking (*p* = 0.002) and thawing loss (*p* < 0.0001), higher intra-muscular fat (IMF) content, and a higher PUFA proportion (*p* < 0.01 and *p* < 0.0001, respectively) and PUFA:SFA ratio. The findings shown herein may provide sound arguments for stakeholders and policy makers to facilitate sustainable local beef production in Israel.

**Keywords:** Holstein; beef; imported animals; local breeds; sustainability; meat quality

#### **1. Introduction**

It has become evident that the sustainability of food systems is critical to their resilience to the recurrence of natural disasters and health crises. This principle is being demonstrated by the current COVID-19 outbreak, which triggered disruptions to import/export activities, in parallel with intensifying calls for shorter supply chains and increased local production [1].

The 'farm-to-fork' approach is a comprehensive strategy, seeking to address the challenges of sustainable food systems by orienting food systems towards the creation of a positive environmental impact, nutritious, healthy, safe and sufficient foods, and fairer economic returns, particularly for primary producers. Unique to animal production systems, the 'farm-to-fork' initiative aims at avoiding carbon leakage through animal imports, reducing the environmental and climatic impact of animal production, and improving animal health and welfare [2]. Key steps towards the fulfillment of these aspirations may involve raising the portion of local animal production at the expense of importing live animals. However, within the global animal production system, as in the case of beef cattle, countries that do not produce sufficient fresh meat rely, to a great extent, on an imported supply of live animals to accomplish their needs.

**Citation:** Shabtay, A.; Shor-Shimoni, E.; Orlov, A.; Agmon, R.; Trofimyuk, O.; Tal, O.; Cohen-Zinder, M. The Meat Quality Characteristics of Holstein Calves: The Story of Israeli 'Dairy Beef'. *Foods* **2021**, *10*, 2308. https://doi.org/10.3390/ foods10102308

Academic Editors: Benjamin W. B. Holman, Eric Nanthan Ponnampalam and Thierry Astruc

Received: 8 August 2021 Accepted: 23 September 2021 Published: 29 September 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

In Israel, ~60% of the sources for fresh beef come from the import of live animals, mainly from Portugal, Australia and Eastern Europe, and the rest stems from free-range beef herds and local dairy farms [3]. During the past several years, trends in the Israeli preference for fresh beef consumption have changed; driven by health awareness, environmental consciousness and ethical considerations, locally produced fresh beef has been favored at the expense of imported meat [3]. Still, more than 200,000 live beef animals are imported to Israel annually. To encourage more sustainable beef production in Israel, sound arguments should be presented for stakeholders and policy makers to control the portion of imported animals. Since free-range beef animals constitute only a small fraction of the fresh meat production chain, and due to the limitation of space, which can hardly exceed its current capacity, the vast majority of fresh meat supplies could originate from fattened male calves and culled cows from local dairy farms. However, as their potential to produce competitive, high-quality beef products is still undefined, many of these animals are transferred out of the country.

Holstein is the premier dairy breed in Israel. Although these animals have primarily been selected for milk production, in many parts of the world they constitute a significant portion of the beef production chain [4]. In the United States alone, dairy breeds (most notably Holstein) make up a substantial quantity of the local feedlot cattle, with as many as 3 to 4 million calves annually grown to contribute approximately 15–20% of the nation's beef supply [5]. In Ireland, of the 1.4 million calves born every year in the local dairy herd, approximately 350,000 are Holstein males, which invariably find their way into the beef sector for rearing and finishing [6]. In comparison with traditional beef breeds, Holstein animals are often criticized for their inferior dressing percentage, as a result of their lower muscle-to-bone ratio [7,8], larger fat deposits (e.g., omental and mesenteric fat) and internal organs (e.g., liver), in order to support their greater lactation requirements [9,10]. In spite of the above, the meat sensory qualities (juiciness, tenderness, flavor, shear force and overall acceptability) of Holstein cows and male calves may be evaluated as indistinguishable from, or even superior to, those of traditional beef breeds [10–16].

Moreover, the genetic architecture of the Holstein breed might highlight its potential to contribute to meat quality phenotypes. Reports from the Animal Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL) database [17] point out the presence of Holstein QTLs associated with milk production traits in the vicinity of the QTLs for meat quality and carcass traits. For example, a QTL associated with milk protein yield on BTA7 in US Holstein cows [18] neighbors two QTLs for meat fat content [19] and meat tenderness [20]. Other QTLs for somatic cell count on BTA24 of Danish Holstein cow [21] overlaps with several QTLs associated with health, production, reproductive traits, and meat and carcass phenotypes [17].

However, the non-supported, yet widespread belief, in scientific studies, that beef of dairy origin is inferior to beef produced from traditional breeds, alongside the rising need, in Israel, to encourage sustainable beef production systems, serves to justify the current study. Herein, we compare and report the meat quality traits of local Holstein vs. imported Australian (*Bos indicus* X *Bos taurus* crosses) male calves.

Our findings indicate the superior meat quality characteristics of local Holstein beef over that of imported Australian calves and, thus, may lay the foundations for the facilitation of sustainable beef production in Israel.

#### **2. Materials & Methods**

#### *2.1. Collaboration*

The part of the study that involved the selection of animals and meat samples was carried out in collaboration with Bakar Tnuva Ltd. (Beit Shean, Israel). Bakar Tnuva is a major beef-producing stakeholder in Israel. It possesses feedlots, abattoirs and meat factories throughout the country, and employs nutritionists, veterinarians, economists, and food technologists, thus controlling the entire fresh beef supply chain of local and imported animals, for the local consumption.
