Stress during rearing and at slaughter: influence on meat quality

Abstract

It has long been known that stress during the slaughter period may result in the production of meat with major quality defects, particularly exudative and dark-cutting meat. Recent studies using behavioural, physiological and/or genomic approaches found that less extreme stress levels during slaughter may also influence technological and/or sensory qualites of meat from pigs, cattle, sheep, poultry and fish flesh, sometimes explaining over 70% of inter-animal variability in quality. Stress reactivity at slaughter varies between individuals and may be predicted from their reactions to stressful challenges during the rearing period. The stress reactivity of an animal depends partly on its earlier experiences and genetic background. In addition to slaughter-related animal welfare questions, today’s challenge is to increase our understanding of the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of stress on meat quality. The different species should be taken into account, as the causes of stress at slaughter and criteria for optimal meat quality are species-specific. In addition, the biological mechanisms underlying the effect of stress on meat and flesh quality partly differ between species.