Genomics: Improving Qualitative Characteristics and Value of Meat from Pigs

Abstract

This article illustrates the main problems of technological and sensory quality encountered in pork production and processing using examples taken from the French pork industry. It describes how in the recent past genomics has allowed a clear improvement of the mean technological quality of pig meat produced in France, and presumably in many other countries, by helping to reduce or eliminate the most striking defects (pale soft exudative – PSE and acid meats). It gives a list of foreseeable applications of genomics to adapt technological and sensory qualities to the requirements of meat end-users, in order to deal with growing market segmentation. Finally, it is concluded that in the future the difficulty will rest much more in the choice of carcass types to produce than in the implementation of the selection tools needed for their production.