Effect of strain on duck breast meat quality

Duck meat consumption is low but steady in the United States (US), while rapidly expanding in other countries. The duck industry is moving from a traditional whole carcass product towards deboned breast fillets and other portions, which has prompted strain selection for breast weight and yield. The effect of bird strain was therefore evaluated for fillet weight, yield, and breast meat quality characteristics. Eighty butterflied paired fillets were obtained from each of 4 Pekin duck strains after carcasses were sized by weight at the processing plant (n = 640). All fillets were weighed and then half of the fillets were evaluated for color. One fillet from each carcass-pair was either frozen or kept fresh for cooking, reweighing, and subsequent color analysis (Commission Internationale de I'Eclairage (CIE) lightness L*, redness a*, and yellowness b*). Both fillets in each carcass-pair were evaluated using Allo–Kramer (AK) and Warner–Bratzler (WB) shear. Strain affected (P < 0.05) raw and cooked fillet weight. Strain C, with the largest BW and selected for both breast yield and growth rate, had higher raw and cooked breast weight. Cooked yield was not affected by strain and averaged 64.4%. Neither AK nor WB shear values were affected by strain, and averaged 4.8 kg/g and 4.2 kg, respectively. Strain had a slight but significant effect on color, affecting lightness (L*) values of all categories, and redness (a*) values of raw and cooked meat. Freezing and thawing produced large and significant thaw losses ranging from 10.4 to 13.6%; differing losses depended on the strain of duck. Duck strain affected breast fillet weights and lightness to a slight extent, but not cook yield or shear values.