Poultry quality must be managed as a continuous biological process

Chicken-meat quality cannot be managed reliably by treating farm, transport, slaughter and chilling as separate operations. A review published on 25 September brings these links together in a mechanistic framework: pre-slaughter conditions influence muscle metabolism, which in turn determines post-mortem conversion. That sequence affects pH decline, water-holding capacity, colour, tenderness, lipid oxidation and the risk of defects such as PSE-like meat, wooden breast and white striping.