Factors involved in poultry quality

Quality has been defined as all consumers’ desirable characteristics focused by poultry producers and processor in order to be satisfied. The demand of poultry quality holds the desirable carcass characteristics and poultry cuts and deboned meat. Carcass characteristics are pigmentation, appearance, size and weight. On other hand deboned meat is the base for manufactured products with added value, representing a change in the traditional presentation of poultry, caused by consumers demand. In the change of whole carcass to added value products processors face different issues related to meat quality related to tenderness, color, water holding capacity and cohesion capacity, characteristics reported in chicken and turkey meat. These characteristics are in relation with pale, soft and exudative (PSE) meat, with a pale color, soft texture and low water holding capacity, associated to antemortem and postmortem stress.