A novel laser air puff and shape profile method for predicting tenderness of broiler breast meat

The potential application of a new laser air puff system to assess poultry meat tenderness was investigated. Ninety broilers were deboned at either 1.25, 4, or 24 h postmortem. The raw breast fillets were scanned on a conveyor belt longitudinally by a laser distance sensor to obtain overall shape profiles and scanned again with a pressurized source of air (206.8 kPa). The 2 resulting profiles were superimposed to quantify the amount of deformation caused by the application of pressurized air. Five parameters including a height and length of each fillet were calculated and used to establish a model to predict tenderness. Tenderness of cooked fillets was determined instrumentally with the Meullenet-Owens razor shear, Blunt-Meullenet-Owens razor shear, and with sensory analysis. Hardness, Meullenet-Owens razor shear energy, and Blunt-Meullenet-Owens razor shear energy were modeled with the parameters extracted from the air puff system. Predicted values obtained from the models and observed values of individual fillets were subjected to logistic regression to classify fillets into tenderness levels. Tender fillets in the air puff predicted tender group represented 82, 81, and 88% based on hardness, Meullenet-Owens razor shear energy, and Blunt-Meullenet-Owens razor shear energy, respectively. The use of this tool resulted in more than a 20% improvement in the number of tender fillets after classification. The results suggested that this new system could potentially be implemented as an online tool for sorting poultry breast fillets by tenderness levels.