What Time Teaches Us About Tenderness
The Eating Experience Gets Better
Independent testing at Colorado State University offers a quiet but telling finding: beef held in SUSPENDED FRESH® storage was rated more favorably by consumer panelists at 120 days than at 60 — and proved measurably more tender by Warner-Bratzler slice shear force. The reason is simple. Because the product never freezes, post-mortem aging is never interrupted — it continues doing its slow, patient work.
In short
Conventional wisdom holds that time works against quality — that the longer something is held, the more it gives up. Third-party testing of the SUSPENDED FRESH® process suggests the opposite is true here: every sensory attribute measured rose between 60 and 120 days of storage, and mechanical tenderness improved by roughly a third from the day-14 baseline.
- Overall liking
- Tenderness liking
- Juiciness liking
- Slice shear force
Strip loin, 60 → 120 days stored. 10-point scale (10 = like extremely).
Strip loin, 60 → 120 days stored. Export rib moved 8.4 → 8.7.
Strip loin, 60 → 120 days stored — the largest single gain observed.
Strip loin, day 14 → day 120. 32% lower force — lower is more tender.
A doubt worth honoring
“Nothing stays fresh that long — not really.”
It is a reasonable instinct, earned the hard way. Extended hold times have traditionally meant choosing between two compromises — freeze the product and accept drip loss, texture damage and a “previously frozen” label, or hold it fresh and watch shelf life, color and odor decline as the window wears on.
Underneath the question of days is a simpler one: does the steak that reaches the consumer still keep the promise your brand made? Would a QA panel, a chef, or a shopper writing a review notice a difference?
Rather than assert an answer, we asked people with no stake in the outcome to find one for us — and we are sharing what came back in full, methodology and limitations included.
The reasoning behind it
Fresh, never frozen — so aging is never interrupted
There is no preservative at work here, and no clever marketing sleight of hand. What matters is simply what does not happen: a phase change from liquid to ice.
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The product never freezes
SUSPENDED FRESH® is a patented, clean-label storage process held within a controlled cold environment that keeps beef fresh — never frozen. With no ice crystals forming, there is no cellular rupture and no thaw purge to recover from.
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Post-mortem aging is left undisturbed
Freezing halts the natural enzymatic breakdown that tenderizes beef over time. Because SUSPENDED FRESH® product never drops below freezing, that quiet process is allowed to continue for the full storage window — the same aging a dry-ager or wet-ager pays for, simply given more time to work.
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Tenderness follows, measurably, with time
The pattern held steady across both cuts tested: the longer the product was held, the less force it took to cut, and the more favorably consumer panelists rated it. Time, it turns out, can be an asset to quality rather than a cost against it.
Evidence, part one — mechanical tenderness
Warner-Bratzler slice shear force
Slice shear force is the industry’s objective tenderness measure: a blade cuts a standardized slice of cooked muscle, and the peak force required is recorded in kilograms. Lower is more tender. Above roughly 25 kg, a steak is generally characterized as tough.
Force required to cut, by storage duration
Kilograms of slice shear force · lower is more tender · Colorado State University
- Strip loin
- Export rib
- Toughness threshold (25 kg)
Swipe chart to see all four time points →
Day 14
60 days
90 days
120 days
How to read it: both cuts begin at or just under the 25 kg toughness threshold at the day-14 baseline, then move steadily further from it. By 120 days, the strip loin needs 8.0 kg less force to cut than it did at day 14, and the export rib 8.7 kg less. Every measurement taken after entering the program falls below the threshold.
View as data table
| Time point | Strip loin (kg) | Export rib (kg) | vs. 25 kg threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 14 (baseline) | 25.2 | 24.5 | At / just below |
| 60 days stored | 21.2 | 20.1 | Below |
| 90 days stored | 18.9 | 16.5 | Below |
| 120 days stored | 17.2 | 15.8 | Below |
| Change, day 14 → 120 | −8.0 kg (−32%) | −8.7 kg (−36%) | — |
Evidence, part two — the consumer sensory panel
What people said after they ate it
A machine measures force. A consumer panel measures the thing you are actually selling: an experience. Panelists at Colorado State University evaluated cooked strip loin and export rib samples from each storage duration, scoring five separate attributes on 10-point scales.
Swipe table to see all five attributes →
| Cut | Storage days | Overall like |
Tenderness like |
Tenderness level |
Flavor like |
Juiciness like |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strip | 60 | 8.4 | 8.3 | 8.3 | 7.8 | 7.4 |
| Strip | 90 | 8.8 | 8.5 | 8.4 | 7.9 | 7.7 |
| Strip | 120 | 8.9 | 8.8 | 8.7 | 8.0 | 8.0 |
| Export | 60 | 8.5 | 8.4 | 8.5 | 8.1 | 7.9 |
| Export | 90 | 8.7 | 8.6 | 8.6 | 8.2 | 8.0 |
| Export | 120 | 8.9 | 8.7 | 8.8 | 8.1 | 8.4 |
Scale definitions. Overall like, flavor like, tenderness like and juiciness like: 10 = like extremely, 1 = dislike extremely. Level of tenderness: 10 = extremely tender, 1 = extremely tough.
Every attribute moved in the same direction
Across both cuts, overall liking, tenderness liking, level of tenderness, flavor liking and juiciness liking all rated higher after longer SUSPENDED FRESH® storage. Strip loin overall liking rose from 8.4 at 60 days to 8.9 at 120; export rib arrived at the same 8.9. Juiciness moved the furthest, from 7.4 to 8.0 on strip loin.
No off-odors were detected
Panelists did not detect any off-odors in the samples stored for the extended durations. For a category where a shopper’s first sensory judgment happens the moment the package opens, that finding carries as much weight as the tenderness numbers do.
Independent perspective
Reviewed by people with every reason to say otherwise, if it didn’t work
Dr. Keith Belk
Department Head, Animal Sciences, and Center for Meat Safety and Quality — Colorado State University
The sensory and shear force work described here was carried out at Colorado State University’s meat science program, where Dr. Belk leads both the department and the Center for Meat Safety and Quality.
Dr. John Stika
President — Certified Angus Beef
The SUSPENDED FRESH® program carries the endorsement of Dr. Stika, whose organization’s reputation rests on the consumer eating experience holding up, cut by cut.
Methodology
How the testing was carried out
- Where. Third-party testing and consumer surveying took place at Colorado State University.
- What was tested. Beef strip loin and export rib.
- Mechanical tenderness. Slice shear force was measured at day 14 to set a baseline, then again after SUSPENDED FRESH® storage at days 60, 90 and 120. A slice shear force above 25 kg is generally considered “tough.”
- Consumer sensory. Panelists rated cooked samples from the 60, 90 and 120 day storage durations on 10-point scales for overall liking, flavor liking, tenderness liking, level of tenderness and juiciness liking, and were asked whether they noticed any off-odors.
- Reporting. The figures shown here are reproduced as reported, with nothing rounded, indexed or rebased.
Questions buyers ask
A few honest answers
Is SUSPENDED FRESH® product ever frozen?
No. SUSPENDED FRESH® is a patented “fresh, never ever frozen” storage technology. The product is held in a controlled cold storage environment that keeps it fresh and above freezing for the entire program — which is precisely why post-mortem aging, and the tenderizing it brings, is allowed to continue rather than stop.
Why would beef get more tender the longer it is stored?
Post-mortem aging is a natural enzymatic process that breaks down muscle proteins and tenderizes beef over time. Freezing brings it to a halt. Because SUSPENDED FRESH® product never freezes, that process is free to continue throughout the storage window. Colorado State University measured the effect: slice shear force on strip loin fell from 25.2 kg at day 14 to 17.2 kg at day 120.
What is Warner-Bratzler slice shear force, and what counts as a good number?
It is the standard objective measure of beef tenderness. A blade cuts a standardized slice of cooked muscle, and the peak force required is recorded in kilograms — the lower the number, the more tender the cut. A slice shear force above 25 kg is generally considered tough. Every SUSPENDED FRESH® stored sample measured below that threshold, down to 15.8 kg on export rib at 120 days.
Did consumers notice any off-odor in the extended-storage samples?
No. Panelists did not detect any off-odors in the samples stored for the extended durations.
Does this apply to every cut and every pack format?
The testing described here covers strip loin and export rib. The process itself has run across formats from rollstock and vacuum packs to patties and tray formats, but shelf-life and quality outcomes are specific to each item and depend on further processing.
Does the extended shelf life have to be disclosed on the box?
New use-by dates are applied to product boxes to clearly reflect the extended shelf life, so what is in the box and how long there is to use it remain plain at receiving.
Can we see the underlying report before we commit?
Yes. The full Colorado State University sensory and shear force results, including panel detail and statistical treatment, are available under NDA. Email info@suspendedfresh.com and we will also arrange a technical call with our meat science team.
Where to go from here
Let’s settle the eating-experience question together
Bring your QA, R&D or category team. We will walk through the full Colorado State University results, the item-level shelf-life validation behind them, and what a cut trial built to your own specification might look like.