Assessing carcass variability in Ontario pork and the potential to increase returns to producers and improve pork quality

There were no differences in back fat measurements regardless of the method used (Destron PG-100 or Autofom III). Muscle depths were underpredicted using the Destron PG-100 and AutoFom III versus manual measurements. There were no differences in back fat thickness or loin muscle depths between the Destron PG-100 and AutoFom III. Lean yield was over predicted using the Destron PG-100 and AutoFom III versus a manual cut-out, with greater lean yields using the Destron PG-100 versus AutoFom III.  These results are interesting when considering how packing plants use lean yield information for producer settlement.

That carcass weight had the major effect on consumers eating quality perception of pork, followed by intramuscular fat and backfat thickness. Due to the complexity of the dataset, we are currently testing several statistical approaches to allow a clear understanding of how these traits affects the consumer perception.

There were only weak relationships (r ≤ 0.35) between the amount of intramuscular fat content and eating quality traits, with no relationship between intramuscular fat content and consumer panel traits. For the most part, there was essentially no relationships (r < 0.11) between drip  loss, cooking losses, or shear force values and any consumer panel assessment of eating quality. Tenderness was moderately correlated with juiciness (r = 0.673) and strongly correlated with overall acceptability (r = 0.696).  Juiciness was moderately correlated with overall acceptability (r = 0.679) and flavour was weakly correlated with juiciness, tenderness, and overall acceptability (r < 0.48).

There were limited relationships between pH and colour measures in the longissimus and these same measurements in 2 muscles in the shoulder and 6 muscles in the ham. Use of some of these measures in a given muscle to predict trait values in diverse muscles may be problematic given major muscle differences in chilling rates of individual muscles after slaughter, muscle fiber composition, individual muscle glycogen levels, and other factors.