Quality Assessment of the Breast Meat from Woorimatdag™ and Broilers

The objective of this study was to compare the characteristics that define the quality of Woorimatdag (TM) (WM, a certified meat-type commercial Korea indigenous chicken breed) and a commercial broiler breed (Ross, CB). Two hundred WM and 200 CB chickens that were 1-d-old and mixed sex were obtained from a commercial hatchery and randomly assigned to floor pens (20 chickens per pen, 3.0x2.0 m) and raised under the same environmental conditions. WM breast meat contained significantly higher crude protein and ash as well as lower crude fat than CB breast meat (p<0.05). WM breast meat had slightly higher alanine, histidine, isoleucine, and glycine as well as lower phenylalanine content than CB breast meat (p<0.05), and the WM breast meat had a low ratio of unsaturated to saturated fatty acid composition (p<0.05). However, arachidonic acid composition was higher in the WM than the CB breast meat. In addition, the inosin-5'-monophosphate content was also higher in the WM compared with the CB breast (p<0.05). The WM breast meat had higher total collagen content compared with CB breast meat. WM soup taste received higher scores with regard to sensory evaluation compared with CB soup (p<0.05). From these results, we conclude that higher amount of protein and flavor precursors and lower amount of fat in the breast meat of WM could be attractive by consumer when compared with CB.