Per capita consumption of red meat products totaled 67 kg in 2017. Given the popularity of meat, it is important for meat scientists to monitor consumers acceptance of red meat products. Consumer acceptance of red meat products is driven by meat quality characteristics such as tenderness. The objectives of the second and third chapter was to investigate the influence of beef ribeye steak weight and thickness on purchasing behaviors of consumers and to better understand the effects of frozen storage on protein degradation, lipid oxidation, meat quality, and sensory characteristics of lamb. As beef carcasses have grown over the time an unexpected consequence arose, an increase in ribeye size. Researchers have been studying these effects for several years to understand the influence on increasing ribeye size in relation to consumer acceptance of beef steaks. Our results indicate beef consumers are varied in their preference of beef ribeye steak size. However, beef consumers do discriminate against thin cut steaks regardless of steak size. These results indicate the beef industry is providing enough variation in steak types to meet consumer demands. The lamb industry experiences lulls and surplus of fresh lamb due to breeding seasons of sheep, creating supply chain issues. Use of frozen lamb could alleviate some of these issues, however consumers discriminate against frozen lamb in the retail space. Our research indicates consumers discriminate against frozen loin chops due to tenderness and juiciness issues. However, consumers did not discriminate against frozen leg chops. Furthermore, we affirmed previous research which indicated the importance of allows lamb several days to age postmortem before freezing to improve protein degradation. An important part of the meat industry is the AMSA intercollegiate meat judging program. This program allows for students to learn how to evaluate meat products and introduces students to the meat industry. Our objective of this study was to better understand the influence of the meat judging program on participants. Our results indicate judging programs provide participants with benefits such as skills development and introduction to the meat industry. Area of improvement included more community building and more applicability to the meat industry.