New technology is being developed to help assess pork quality more efficiently. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) shows promise with identifying water holding capacity, including meat colour, cooking loss and drip loss. Meat composition may also be able to be determined by the amount of fat and lean meat in the sample. This is a very fast process and could have a major impact on slaughter or processing plants. Hyperspectral imaging may be another approach that could complement NMR as it can scan loin samples in thawed or frozen pork to determine the intramuscular fat content. These technologies can help shorten the amount of time to measure samples and direct the fat or meat to specific markets.
Pork Quality – How to Assess without the Mess (full article)
