Rapid pig growth in the finishing period can increase meat tenderness
Take Home Message: Growing pigs at a faster rate will improve pork tenderness but has little effect on meat odour or flavour characteristics.
Pork tenderness increases when pigs are grown relatively rapidly in the finishing period. But although fast growth will benefit tenderness, it won’t necessarily benefit meat odour or flavour.
These were the finding of a study by scientists from Bristol and Leeds to investigate the effect of variations in growth rate on tenderness and boar taint and presented to delegates at this year’s British Society of Animal Science annual conference.
“This is evidence that faster growing pigs have superior tenderness, which is possibly linked to faster muscle protein deposition through the activity and expression of proteolytic enzymes,” said Bristol University’s Dario Zammerini, explaining the rational behind the work.
“Slow growth could also result in higher boar taint levels in entire male pigs because they will be older and sexually more mature at slaughter.”
A total of 225 loins were examined from Large White x Landrace pigs involved in an experiment with three ‘growth’ categories – fast, slow and interrupted. The pigs were a mixture of two sexes and two final liveweights – 90kg and 110kg. Growth rate was measured between weaning and slaughter, with pigs fed ad lib.
Guidelines for fast growth were more than 600g per day to 90kg and more than 700g per day to 110kg. Guidelines for slow growth were around 500g per day to 90kg and 590g per day to 110kg. Interrupted growth pigs were those that had suffered a period of weight loss presumed to be due to infection. Final numbers in the three growth categories were 96 fast, 86 slow and 43 interrupted.
Loins were delivered to Bristol University where various meat quality measurements were made. The loins were conditioned at 1ºC for 10 days and then stored at -20ºC before analysis.
“The P2 fat thickness was approximately 1mm greater in the fast growth compared to the slow and interrupted growth groups. And there was a strong tendency for toughness to be lower in the fast group, but a significant growth category x carcass weight interaction prevented this being a statistically significant effect,” said Mr Zammerini.
“Toughness was significantly lower in the fast groups at both 90kg and 110kg carcass weight.”
The concentrations of skatole and androstenone in male pigs were highest in the fast group. “But there were no significant differences in taint compound concentrations between 90kg and 110kg carcass weight groups in males. Tenderness was higher in the ‘fast’ group of 110kg male pigs and abnormal odour and flavour were not significantly different between the groups,” he added.
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