System of pork carcass grading: proposal for cuban meat industry

Abstract

The introduction of a carcass grading system in our country would be very advantageous for the swine productive chain for that to define a pork carcass grading system for Cuban market was the objective in the present work. The information about the pork carcass grading systems and equipments was upgraded. The measures of the dorsal fat thickness and the correlation equation to predict the meat content of carcasses were defined. The effectiveness of the correlation equation was proved. The racial structure of the swinish livestock use to sacrifice in our industry was identified and the necessity of the validation of the correlation equation in other slaughterhouses. The correlation equation was validated in other slaughterhouses. All the results obtained in the previous stages that were related with yields and composition of the swinish carcasses was processed statistically. It was concluded that the proposal of pork carcass grading system to market the pig in Cuba consist of four grades of quality: G1 (> 57% lean meat); G2 (57.1 – 50.4% lean meat); G3 (50.5 – 45.1% lean meat) and G4 (< 45% lean meat). A prediction equation valid for carcasses with weight from 35 to 130 kg was established.