Influence of carbon dioxide stunning procedure on quality of turkey meat

ABSTRACT

1. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of sex and gas stunning on quality attributes of turkey breast meat.

2. One hundred B.U.T. Premium turkeys (50 males and 50 females) were divided into four groups of 25 animals and subjected to one of two CO₂ stunning procedures: G1 stepwise (step 1: 30% CO₂, 15 s; step 2: 55% CO₂, 40 s; step 3: 70% CO₂, 45 s) or G2 fixed concentration (80% CO₂, 100 s). The pH and meat colour at 20 min post-mortem, and pH, colour (L*, a*, b*), water holding capacity (WHC), drip loss (DL), cooking loss (CL) and Warner–Bratzler shear force (WBSF) in breast samples at 24 h and 7 d post-mortem were assessed.

3. There were significant differences between stunning groups for pH, meat colour and CL, whereas no significant differences were found for DL and WBSF. Sex had a significant effect on pH and b* and ageing of meat affected pH, colour coordinates, DL and WBSF.

4. It was concluded that the G2 treatment affected negatively the pH value and colour coordinates. However, G2 stunning affected positively the WHC parameters. Female turkeys had better results than males for pH, and the colour of female turkey breast meat was less yellow than male breast meat.

KEYWORDS:

• Stunning
• carbon dioxide (CO₂)
• turkeys
• meat quality

Acknowledgements

This study was developed in the programme Business Doctors with the Department of Animal Production, University of Córdoba. The authors wish to thank the collaboration of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, the Santander bank Universities Global Division and ceiA3.

Ethics Statement

This study was carried out in strict accordance with the Animal Welfare Plan of the company where the research was conducted. The Animal Welfare Plan aims to protect turkeys during transport procedures, management, housing, handling, restraining, stunning and slaughter-bleeding processes. The study did not need to be approved by the Committee of the Ethics of Animal Experiments at the University of Cordoba nor the competent authority because it was carried out before the current EU regulations were put in place. The regulations policy of the University of Cordoba did not require approval for this type of study at the time the research was conducted.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.