Development of analytical methods for online assessment of meat quality Subject within the scope of the DFG/AIF cluster Minimal Processing

The meat quality of pork is very variable. The most common deviation of pork meat quality is the so called PSE meat which is characterised by pale colour, soft and exudative meat going along with a rather low pH(45) value. Presently, differences in meat quality can not be detected immediately after slaughter. However, an early determination of meat quality, with a view to an increasingly automatised process of dissection, is of great importance. This project investigated online suitable methods for meat quality determination to establish a fast and non-invasive assessment of meat. Therefore, pH(45), pH(24), drip loss and shear force were determined at 156 hams. The correlations between these parameters and the fast and non-invasive Raman spectroscopy achieved good and promising results. Thus, these parameters for meat quality can be estimated early after slaughter by Raman spectroscopy.