A comparison of the Duroe, Hampshire, Landrace, and Large White as terminal sire breeds of crossbred pigs slaughtered at 85 kg liveweight

Abstract

Quality assessments were made on samples of M. longissimus tissue from crossbred pigs sired by Duroc, Hampshire, Landrace, and Large White boars slaughtered at 85 kg liveweight. Samples from the Hampshire crosses had higher drip losses, reflectance values (lighter colour), cooking losses, and incidence of pale, soft, exudative (PSE) meat, but lower ultimate pH and WarnerBratzler shear values compared with Landrace- and Large White-crosses. The latter had similar meat quality characteristics and Duroc crossbreds were generally intermediate between the white crosses and Hampshire crossbreds. After adjustment for differences in ultimate pH, taste panel evaluations of M. longissimus showed samples from Hampshire crosses were more tender, more juicy, and more acceptable overall than the other breed groups. Flavour strength for the Hampshire cross samples was higher than for the other groups before pH adjustment. Intramuscular fat levels were highest for the Duroc crosses, but differences between breeds were not significant. There were significant curvilinear relationships between ultimate pH and Warner-Bratzler shear force, taste panel tenderness, and overall acceptability, with poorer meat quality being shown at intermediate pH values. Flavour strength of the meat declined with increasing ultimate pH. Intramuscular fat content of M. longissimus was not associated with any of the quality characteristics measured in this study.

Keywords:

• Duroc
• Hampshire
• Landrace
• Large White
• crossbreeding
• pig
• meat quality
• meat pH