Current Research and Strategies for Improving Farm Animal Meat Quality
A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Farm Animal Production".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 November 2025 | Viewed by 2748
Special Issue Editors
Interests: meat production and quality; game meat quality; production systems; milk production
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: meat production and quality; meat processing technology; sensory analysis; food safety
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Meat quality includes numerous traits that can be affected by intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Meat quality can be analysed in terms of the nutritional properties they provide for human consumption, the traits that determine they safety of the meat (hygiene and toxicology), the traits that are important for meat processing, and the set of traits that determine sensory quality. Thus, the analysis of meat quality can be approached from different points. The genetic background of a species and/or breed has an inevitable effect on farm animal meat quality and its interaction with production systems, mainly with respect to nutritional properties and pre-mortem handling results regarding the specific physio-chemical characteristics of the meat. During post-mortem handling, transport and shelf-life microorganism contamination can occur, leading to meat spoilage and unappetizing or even poisonous or infectious effects. The meat industry requires specific meat characteristics, and different post-mortem handling and treatment methods can be beneficial to improve meat quality parameters. In addition to nutritional traits, consumers are becoming more interested in the sensory characteristics of meat (juiciness, flavour, and texture), which determine meat eating quality, as well as the welfare of the animals used for meat production. Due to these broad topics, new studies are valuable sources of information on the diverse effects on meat quality parameters.
This Special Issue focuses on the current research on improving farm animal meat quality and the relevant strategies used to achieve this goal. We welcome the submission of studies that present new and valuable results regarding the effects of breeding and genetics on meat quality and the effects of production systems and nutritional strategies, welfare status, and pre- and post-mortem handling procedures on the nutritional, physio-chemical, and sensory profiling of farm animal meat quality. Both original research articles and reviews are welcome.
Dr. Nikolina Kelava UgarkovićDr. Ana Kaić
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- breeding
- feeding systems
- nutritional strategies
- welfare
- transport practices
- stress biomarkers
- microbiology safety
- post-mortem handling and carcass treatments
- aging
- nutritional composition
- sensory profiling
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