Post-rigor assessment of porcine meat quality applying a portable raman system

This contribution presents new results forthe non-invasive quality assessment of porkusing a prototypehandheld Raman device. Earlier work has shown that pH45, pH24and drip loss can be predicted 0.5-2h after slaughter with this device. Likewise, it is of interest to evaluate thepotential of Raman spectra measured post rigor. Therefore, Raman spectra, pH values, color, drip loss and cooking loss of137 porcine longissimus thoracis muscleswere measured. The spectra correlated well with the pH24(R²cv=0.7 and 0.82, for puncture andsurface electrode, respectively)and L* (R²cv=0.67).Thecorrelationswith cooking loss3 and 7 days p.m. and with drip loss were less precise(R²cv=0.33, 0.41and 0.29, respectively). Thus, mobile Raman spectroscopy can measure important technological quality traits during deboning, but the predictive power is reduced compared to using pre-rigor spectra.