Current Status of Poultry Meat Abnormalities

Giulia Baldi,Francesca Soglia,Massimiliano Petracci

doi:10.22175/mmb.9503

Abstract

Over the past decade, the poultry industry has faced an increasing occurrence of growth-related muscular abnormalities that mainly affect fast-growing genotypes selected for their production performances (high growth rate and breast yield). These abnormalities, termed white striping (WS), wooden breast (WB) and spaghetti meat (SM), primarily affect the superficial portion of pectoralis major muscles. Despite their distinctive phenotypes, WS, WB, and SM conditions entail common histological features, i.e., they might share common causative mechanisms underpinning their occurrence. Meat affected by growth-related abnormalities is harmless for human nutrition since no specific biological or chemical hazards have been found to be related to its consumption. However, WS, WB, and SM abnormalities negatively affect both quality traits and technological properties of raw and processed meat, causing relevant economic damages in the poultry industry. This paper aims to provide an update about the current status of poultry meat abnormalities, giving useful insights about their impact on meat quality, the possible causative mechanisms, methods for mitigation, and future perspectives.

Highlights

With an average of 314.2 kg/capita consumed per year worldwide, poultry meat is the most widely eaten type of meat in the world (OECD, 2019)
Variability in both the manner and the extent of chicken meat consumption recorded in the past 50 y has inevitably led to genetic selection that is aimed at obtaining fastgrowing birds to keep up with the increasing request for chicken meat
Actual slaughter weight of broiler chickens is 35% higher than their 1960s counterparts, while the slaughter age has been reduced by 16 d (NCC, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

With an average of 314.2 kg/capita consumed per year worldwide, poultry meat is the most widely eaten type of meat in the world (OECD, 2019). It is important to highlight that these strategies might not result in any efficient mitigation effect because a possible decreased slaughter weight and breast size of the animals might be cited as the causes for the reduction of the incidence of breast abnormalities (Petracci et al, 2019) It seems that, the most efficient solution is represented by the incorporation of abnormal meat into the formulation of processed products, since mincing procedures as well as the addition of functional ingredients might mask the impaired sensory and technological properties of abnormal meat (Brambila et al, 2017; Xing et al, 2017). Near-infrared spectroscopy has been used to detect WB meat in chicken slaughtering lines (Geronimo et al, 2019) and turkey fillets with severe WS (Zaid et al, 2020)

Conclusions

Findings

Literature Cited