Quality evaluation of chicken meat preserved with local packaging materials

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of using local materials – plastic containers, polythene bags, printing paper wrappers and cardboard carton boxes in packaging poultry meat for preservation over 28days. 45 spent Shika Brown layers reared on the Teaching and Research Farm of Olabisi Onabanjo University Ayetoro Campus were procured and slaughtered. The carcasses were packaged in group of 3 and each treatment had 9 carcasses per treatment thus TO = Control (No packaging), T1 = Plastic containers, T2 = Polythene bags; T3 = Printing paper wrappers T4 = Cardboard Carton boxes and the chicken carcasses were preserved in a freezer at – 18oC for 28 days. Data collected on physicochemical, microbiological, lipid oxidation and organoleptic properties of the meat were evaluated at the end of 28 days with analysis of variance (ANOVA) in a completely randomized design (CRD) and analyzed statistically at (p<0.05). The results showed that chicken meat packaged with plastic containers (T1) had the highest (p<0.05) quality attributes at the end of preservation time closely followed by meat packaged with polythene bags (T2), while carton (T4) and control treatments (T0) furnished the least (p<0.05) meat quality attributes. It was recommended therefore, that chicken meat could be better packaged with plastic containers in developing countries in lieu of very costly and unavailable modern packaging materials for better quality of chicken meat.