Fish Freshness Meter (Torrymeter) used to differentiate de-boned fresh Chicken vs frozen-thawed Chicken

Title	Differentiation of Deboned Fresh Chicken Thigh Meat from the Frozen-Thawed One Processed with Different Deboning Conditions
Article Written by	Young Sik Bae, Jae Cheong Lee, Samooel Jung, Hyun-Joo Kim, Seung Yeop Jeon, Do Hee Park, Soo-Kee Lee, Cheorun Jo
Research Done at	Soul National University, Korea Chungnam National University, Korea
Published Date	Jan. 20, 2014
Species	Chicken Thigh meat
Key Words	chicken thigh, fresh, frozen-thawed, deboning, torrymeter, differentiation

What the research is about

This study was performed to evaluate the quality characteristics of three deboned categories of chicken thigh meat:

• One which was slaughtered and deboned in the same plant (fresh)
• one which was slaughtered, deboned, frozen, and thawed in the same plant (frozen-thawed)
• last which was slaughtered in a plant, deboned in a different plant, but then transferred to the original plant (fresh-outside).

The Fish Freshness Meter (Torrymeter) was used to measure the differences in freshness of the chicken meat. Torrymeter values were higher in fresh chicken meat than fresh-outside and frozen-thawed chicken meat during the storage period. These results indicate that the quality of frozen-thawed chicken meat is comparatively lower than the fresh chicken meat and the torrymeter values can accurately differentiate the fresh-outside and frozen-thawed chicken meat from the fresh ones.

Research conclusion

Drip loss and sensory evaluation clearly differentiate the fresh chicken thigh meat from the frozen-thawed one. The Fish Freshness Meter (Torrymeter) was found to be effective and simple to differentiate the fresh chicken thigh meat from frozen-thawed or fresh-outside samples, and can, therefore, be implemented in industry.