Quality of carcass and meat of large Yorkshire and Swedish landrace pigs

Abstract

The comparative quality evaluation of sides and meat was performed after several years of selection of Large Yorkshire (LY) and Swedish Landrace (SL) pigs. The quality of carcass sides e.g. meat yield in sides, was determined in-vivo, using the PIGLOG 105, on the slaughter-line according to Regulation and using the FOM device on a number of pig carcass sides of LY and SL breed(n: LY = 48; SL = 39), and after cooling, partial dissection of left sides was applied according to procedure recommended in the EU, on a smaller number of pure breed sides (n: LY = 18; SL = 17). The investigated selection model in pure breed animals yielded rather good results regarding halves quality of both races (% of meat determined by partial dissection: LY = 57,9; SL = 57,4), while the average meat quality (M. semimembranosus) on the basis of technological characteristics (pHi, pHu, WHCu and colouru) of both investigated races was somewhat poorer and corresponded to RSE quality.