Classifying meat quality

Processed meat products such as cold meats, burgers and sausages are often made from mechanically separated meat. This entails forcing pureed or ground meat under high pressure through a sieve to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue.

Due to the perceived inferior quality of mechanically separated meat compared with manually deboned meat, it is subject to stricter legislation. However, the latest mechanical separation methods can produce meat that is indistinguishable from its manually separated counterpart.

The EU-funded MACSYS (Development of an objective method to perform quality classification of comminuted poultry meat) project aims to develop a method for classifying meat based on quality rather than its deboning method. MACSYS is creating a rapid system to objectively monitor meat quality in processing lines, regardless of how the minced meat is produced.

Researchers will quantify muscle structure degradation using an automated image analysis system combined with cloud-based software to measure meat quality. In addition, they are developing sensors at production sites that monitor other important quality traits of the meat.

MACSYS's novel automated analysis system will be useful for EU food laboratories and inspection services interested in saving costs and time while assessing meat quality. Meat-processing equipment manufacturers will also benefit by integrating the fast-track method into their production line, adding value to their equipment by enabling in-line meat classification.