Improving Poultry Meat Quality

Recent years have seen a rise in the number of consumers wishing to know more about the journey their food takes from farm to fork. Consumer expectations of the sensory and nutritional qualities of food products have increased as a result. Poultry producers and processors must balance these quality parameters with other requirements such as yield and animal welfare.

Improving poultry meat quality addresses the wealth of recent research on the genetic and environmental factors affecting the development of quality traits in poultry meat and their potential implications for breeding, husbandry and postharvest processing. This collection also reviews recent advances in understanding colour, texture and flavour development in poultry meat.

A particular focus is coverage of key poultry myopathies associated with modern broiler production such as white striping, wooden breast and pale soft exudative meat. The book considers their causes, impacts on meat quality and how these defects can be prevented or overcome.

Author Biography

Dr Massimiliano Petracci is Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Italy. Professor Petracci is Chair of Working Group 5 ‘Poultry Meat Quality’ of the European Federation of the World’s Poultry Science Association. He is also Associate Editor of Frontiers in Physiology and Meat and Muscle Biology. Dr Mario Estévez is Professor in the Department of Animal Production and Food Science at the Universidad de Extremadura, Spain. Dr Estévez is an internationally-recognised expert in oxidative reactions and their consequences on food quality, shelf-life and consumers’ health. He has published more than 170 scientific papers and has been identified as Highly-Cited Researcher in the field of Agricultural Sciences by Clarivate Analytics for two consecutive years (2020 and 2021). He serves on the Editorial Board of Meat Science and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Food Science and Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety. Dr Massimiliano Petracci is Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Italy. Professor Petracci is Chair of Working Group 5 ‘Poultry Meat Quality’ of the European Federation of the World’s Poultry Science Association. He is also Associate Editor of Frontiers in Physiology and Meat and Muscle Biology. Dr Brian Bowker is a Research Food Technologist with USDA-ARS at the U.S. National Poultry Research Center in Athens, Georgia. His current research focuses on understanding how the chemical and physical properties of poultry muscle influences the quality attributes of fresh and further processed poultry meat products. Previously, Dr. Bowker worked at the USDA-ARS Food Technology and Safety Lab in Beltsville, Maryland conducting research on postharvest technologies for improving red meat quality. He received his BS in animal science and his PhD in meat science and muscle biology from Purdue University. Dr Mario Estévez is Professor in the Department of Animal Production and Food Science at the Universidad de Extremadura, Spain. Dr Estévez is an internationally-recognised expert in oxidative reactions and their consequences on food quality, shelf-life and consumers’ health. He has published more than 170 scientific papers and has been identified as Highly-Cited Researcher in the field of Agricultural Sciences by Clarivate Analytics for two consecutive years (2020 and 2021). He serves on the Editorial Board of Meat Science and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Food Science and Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety.