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.

The paper identifies several particularly relevant connecting points: energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, oxidative balance, calcium homeostasis and proteolytic systems. These are not isolated parameters. Temperature, stocking density, genetics, feeding, stress and pre-slaughter handling can converge in these processes and change how muscle responds after death. A late correction in the plant therefore cannot always compensate for an earlier deviation.

In practice, this moves the discussion from individual measures to process profiles. A quality specification for breast or thigh meat should connect production and welfare indicators with slaughter, chilling and product-assessment variables. It also requires clarity about which defect, sensory attribute or commercial application is to be avoided or secured.

The review does not provide one universal protocol for every business. Its contribution is methodological: genomic, proteomic and metabolomic data can be valuable when linked to verifiable operational measures. The practical gain is not in accumulating data, but in locating causes before they appear as yield loss, complaints or reduced product performance.