CHANGES IN THE QUALITY OF DRESSED CHICKEN OBTAINED FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES DURING FROZEN STORAGE

This present study examines the preservation quality of dressed chicken procured from different sources of processing during storage at ?18±1ºC. Breast portion of the dressed birds obtained from three different sources, viz. market/road side slaughtered chicken (MSC), retail slaughtered chicken (RSC), and scientifically slaughtered chicken (SSC), were cut into chunks, divided into 250 g portions, packed in polyethylene bags, stored at ?18±1ºC and evaluated at 30 days intervals for changes in quality attributes. Frozen storage had no marked influence on pH change of the samples. SSC samples had higher extract release volume (15.34±0.08 to 13.45±0.93 ml) than MSC (13.00±0.19 to 9.91±0.97 ml) and RSC samples (13.65±0.24 to 11.70±1.21ml). There was significant increase (P<0.05) in thiobarbituric acid of all three sample types during storage but values were well below the threshold level of spoilage. SSC samples showed lower tyrosine content throughout frozen storage compared to MSC and RSC samples. A significant decline in microbial load, viz. total viable count, coliform count, psychrophilic count and yeast and moulds count were noticed during frozen storage. Organoleptic attributes, viz. appearance, flavour, texture and overall palatability were not affected due to frozen storage except juiciness in MSC samples which decreased (P<0.05) from 6.53±0.13 to 5.96±0.11 on 90 days of storage. Although the scientifically slaughtered chicken had better quality, all the sample types could be stored at ?18±1ºC till 90 days without much deterioration in their quality.