Estimation of the Necessary Sample Size for Predicting Meat Quality Characteristics for Producers

Abstract

<p>The pork production industry is moving toward payment methods that are based on pork quality. To do so creates the need for collecting pork quality measurements. It is typically not cost effective to take pork quality measurements on all pork carcasses to determine quality payments for a pork producer. To determine a cost effective prediction of a pork quality grade for a producer it is necessary to know how many samples should be taken. Information is presented for the percent of pigs which will need to be tested for a 90 percent confidence level. These vary by pork quality measurement. It ranged from 10 percent for color to 62 percent for drip loss. The projected cost of obtaining a pH measurement on 2,000 hogs per week was $0.057 per hog.</p>