Quality assurance and economical feasibility of an innovative product obtained from a byproduct of the meat industry in Brazil

Abstract

The Brazilian beef industry generates various wastes that are underutilized and often discarded without proper treatment, thereby polluting the environment. Among these tailings are the feet of chicken. The most popular and used is the gelatin of mammals (pigs and cattle) that is subjected to greater restrictions and skepticism among consumers due to socio-cultural and health concerns. Thus, it should be encouraged to search for new sources of gelatins. This paper aimed to obtain agood quality and innovating product from chicken feet and shows its economical feasibility. Factors such as collagen and sugar content have been varied in a 22experimental design (DOE) to assess their effects on the sensorial qualities of the chicken gelatins. Gelatin samples were prepared for the experiment; 200 g of chicken feet was extracted by a thermal bath of 4% acetyl acid solution at 60°C. Chemical qualities, in relation to product characterization, were also determined. Results showed that the collagen composition of the chicken feet gelatins was two-times larger than the commercial gelatin and the Sensorial Analysis showed no difference between chicken feet gelatins and beef gelatins statistically at 95% level of significance. Its selling price was 4.80 and 6.74 US$/kg or 95.90-134.78 per bag of 20 kg which was between 25 and 47% cheaper than the commercial collagen.This demonstrates that gelatins of chicken feet are economically feasible, have very good nutritional and sensorial qualities and are promising product derivative of a non valued by-product from beef industry. Key words: Reuse, byproduct, meat industry, food quality, chicken feet, economically feasibility.