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In this paper, we report the development of a nondestructive prediction model for lean meat percentage (LMP) in Korean pig carcasses and in the major cuts using a machine vision technique. A popular vision system in the meat industry, the VCS2000 was installed in a modern Korean slaughterhouse, and the images of half carcasses were captured using three cameras from 175 selected pork carcasses (86 castrated males and 89 females). The imaged carcasses were divided into calibration (n=135) and validation (n=39) sets and a multilinear regression (MLR) analysis was utilized to develop the prediction equation from the calibration set. The efficiency of the prediction equation was then evaluated by an independent validation set. We found that the prediction equation—developed to estimate LMP in whole carcasses based on six variables—was characterized by a coefficient of determination (Rv2) value of 0.77 (root-mean square error [RMSEV] of 2.12%). In addition, the predicted LMP values for the major cuts: ham, belly, and shoulder exhibited Rv2 values≥0.8 (0.73 for loin parts) with low RMSEV values. However, lower accuracy (Rv(2)=0.67) was achieved for tenderloin cuts. These results indicate that the LMP in Korean pig carcasses and major cuts can be predicted successfully using the VCS2000-based prediction equation developed here. The ultimate advantages of this technique are compatibility and speed, as the VCS2000 imaging system can be installed in any slaughterhouse with minor modifications to facilitate the on-line and real-time prediction of LMP in pig carcasses.

The objectives of this study was to compare palatability changes of the longissimus thoracis (LT) and vastus lateralis (VL) muscles of Hanwoo steers from different beef quality grades (1 + and 1) during 28 d of wet-aging in order to improve the utilization of the VL muscle as a steak. The VL muscle showed a higher collagen content and a lower intramuscular fat content than the LT muscle (p<0.05). As expected, the Warner-Bratzler shear force value was greater in the LT 1 grade (LT-1) muscle than the LT-1 + muscle (p<0.05); whereas no difference was observed between the grades in the VL muscle at 24 h postmortem. Compared to 0 d of aging, tenderness scores significantly increased after 14 and 21 d of aging in the LT and VL muscles, respectively (p<0.05). Additionally, there was no difference in tenderness score between the VL-1 + aged for 21 d and the LT-1 at 24 h postmortem, although tenderness score was greater in the LT than the VL at each period (p<0.05). Moreover, the VL-1 + steak exhibited a higher tenderness score than the VL-1 steak at 21 and 28 d of aging (p<0.05). On the other hand, the effect of aging time on juiciness and flavor in the VL muscle was somewhat limited unlike the LT muscle. Taken together, the VL muscle requires a longer aging time than the LT muscle to improve consumer preference. Considering the tenderness, using a higher quality grade for aging is more useful in the VL muscle.

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The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of dehairing methods and sex on various traits of pork quality, as well as on tissue levels of the boar taint compounds androstenone and skatole. At the early postmortem period, dehided pigs showed higher muscle pH levels (p<0.05), lower temperatures (p<0.05) and lower drip loss (p<0.001) than scalded pigs. Thus, the dehairing method can affect the early postmortem glycolytic rate and water-holding capacity. Moreover, the differences in meat quality traits between the genders were small, and not considered to have practical importance. The scalding method had only a limited effect on the androstenone content. On the other hand, the scalded entire males exhibited a lower content of skatole than the dehided entire males (p<0.01). These results appear to indicate that the heating treatment from the scalding process influenced the reduction of skatole content for the scalded entire males.