Ability of physico-chemical measurements to discriminate rabbit meat from three different productive processes

BACKGROUND: To fulfil consumers' requirements for food traceability, it is necessary to have effective tools to differentiate food products according to their origin. The aim of the study was to identify a limited number of physico-chemical measurements that could differentiate rabbit meat from three different rearing systems: standard production system or a high quality norm system or a very low growth breeding system. RESULTS: The stepwise linear discriminant analysis (LDA) provided 14 physico-chemical variables, then combined into two discriminant factors. Most of them (n = 8) were related to bone traits, and especially (n = 5) to mechanical femur assessments. Mechanical characteristics of meat were also relevant in this analysis. Decision tree analysis (DTA) selected two variables only (femur stiffness, and ratio of femur weight to chilled carcass weight) to discriminate the three groups. A total of 96% and 90% of rabbits were correctly assigned to their original group according to LDA and DTA, respectively. CONCLUSION: This work demonstrated that simple physico-chemical traits recorded in carcasses and meat were efficient to discriminate rabbits from three different rearing systems using LDA or DTA procedures. These systems could have further implications for future traceability of breeding origin. (C) 2007 Society of Chemical Industry.