Title Pending 20207

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Rapid Evaporative Ionization Mass Spectrometry (REIMS) is an ambient ionization mass spectrometry technique that enables real-time evaluation of several complex traits from a single measurement. The objectives of this study were: (1) to investigate the capability of REIMS to accurately identify and predict sheep carcass characteristics and flavor based on consumer response utilizing data acquired by I-Knife, and (2) to compare the ability of two electrodes (Meat Probe vs. I-Knife) to differentiate carcass characteristics and cooked meat flavor. For objective 1, 200 sheep carcasses were used to generate I-Knife REIMS data from the external fat and the surface lean of Biceps femoris muscle (45 minutes postmortem) as well as meat patties (24 hours postmortem). These patties were further used to evaluate consumer preferences using sensory analysis. Objective 2 was achieved by comparing the predictive performance of I-Knife and Meat-Probe REIMS data collected from meat patties. The results demonstrated that REIMS analysis of raw meat samples can be used to accurately predict and classify cooked sheep meat flavor and carcass characteristics. Specifically, the lean and fat tissue collected at 45 min postmortem can be used to predict carcass characteristics and postrigor meat flavor. Models for diet, flavor intensity acceptance, off-flavor presence, overall acceptance, age, and flavor acceptance achieved prediction accuracy higher than 80%. In addition, models generated using data from the Meat Probe had similar or better prediction accuracies for carcass background (age, diet, and gender) and consumer preference (intensity acceptance, flavor acceptance, off-flavor presence, and overall acceptance) compared to models based on the I-Knife data. Overall, these results demonstrated the potential for REIMS to predict and classify cooked sheep meat flavor accurately and validated the use of the Meat Probe for REIMS analysis.