Chicken processors can turn waste to wealth by using woody breast meat for sausages and hot dogs.
As part of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Industry’s Poultry Processor Workshop in Nashville, Tennessee, Dr. Harshavardhan Thippareddi, the John Bekkers Professor in Poultry Science at the University of Georgia, spoke about the best uses for chicken breast meat exhibiting myopathies. He spoke on November 16, 2021.
By grinding, flavoring and processing, even the most severe woody breast fillets can be made into chicken sausages, fresh and cooked, and hot dogs that create significant value from a sub-optimal product.
Breast meat myopathies
Conditions like woody breast, white striping, spaghetti meat and green tender syndrome remain a problem in the integrated poultry industry. These conditions either render the breast meat unusable or force processors to find other uses for the meat which earn significantly less than quality breast meat.
The exact cause of these conditions is unknown but there is some agreement they are associated with modern broiler genetics favoring rapid weight gain. Thippareddi said the industry views the loss as an acceptable trade-off for increased efficiency.
Woody breast meat is higher in moisture, fat and collagen than normal meat and lower in muscle protein content. Functionally, it has less marinade uptake and retention. It appears different with a bulging out shape, hemorrhages, viscous fluid and white striping. In the mouth, the texture is not the same as normal meat.
Comminuted meat products
The greatest opportunities for woody breast meat lie with comminuted meat products: ground chicken, sausages and hot dogs.
Through grinding, chopping and mixing, woody breast meat is used to make new products which do not suffer from the adverse texture issues. Thippareddi said if a processor is gaining some value, or at least not losing as much value on the woody breast fillet by grinding, prices for a whole fillet and ground chicken are now about the same.
Chicken sausages are growing in popularity and cost $3 to $4 a pound. New research shows fresh and cooked sausages did not show significant differences when using normal and woody breast meat in terms of quality, appearance, texture and taste.
Hot dogs made from woody breast fillets are another avenue. Chicken hot dogs are predominantly made from mechanically separated meat and often are combined with other meats. A pure chicken hot dog is not a common or necessarily high-demand product, but could have appeal in countries with dietary restrictions prohibiting beef or pork consumption.
He also said chicken fat from deboning, which is often sold for about six cents per pound in rendering, could be an essential ingredient in these further processed products. By using this fat, rather than fat from another animal, the product can be marketed as 100% chicken and a new potential revenue path can be opened for material sold for rendering.
Using woody breast meat intact
Using woody breast meat as an intact breast meat product is potentially problematic due to its meat texture attributes, decreased water-holding capacity and undesirable appearance.
Portioning could help processors utilize some parts of the woody breast fillet. The effects of the condition are not consistent throughout the fillet. It’s more extensive at the cranial end of the cut and especially on the skin side.
Modern cutting technology, Thippareddi said, can remove portions of the fillet that do not exhibit the condition to the same extent. Portions comparable to normal meat could be sold as breast fillets while the woody portions could be used in ground chicken products or sausages.
Moisture-enhanced woody breast meat
As a moisture-enhanced product, woody breast meat performs significantly worse on important yield parameters. Its marinade uptake is 53% to 69% lower than normal meat, its marinade retention is 71% to 85% less and its cook loss is 2% to 6% greater than a normal fillet.
In terms of quality, the cooked shear force of woody breast meat is improved by marination. Marinated woody breast meat has greater shear force than marinated normal fillets. Its texture is harder, springier, chewier and more cohesive than a normal breast meat fillet. Its discoloration is obvious when cooked.
Thippareddi said overall marination improves woody breast texture attributes but there are still sensory differences between marinated woody and normal breast meat.
The best results can be achieved by portioning the fillet horizontally and tumbling the bone-side portion of the meat in a vacuum-tumbler with a marinade composed of salt and sodium triphosphate. The bone-side portion of a woody breast fillet is more like a normal fillet than the skin-side portion with regards to processing and texture attributes.
Enzymes can be used to tenderize meat. Specifically, exogenous proteases tenderize meat through proteolysis. Dual proteases (papain and bromelain) create a hydrolysis of myofibrillar proteins. Collagenases create a hydrolysis of collagen.
Meat color is unaffected by proteases. Cook loss when using protease marination is greater in woody breast meat than with normal meat. He said caution must be used with enzymes because there is a high potential for a mushy texture when using proteases.
Mechanical tenderization
Potential also exists to use mechanical, or blade tenderization, to improve the quality of woody breast meat. Thippareddi said the texture of woody breast meat can be improved through mechanical tenderization but it's never going to be the same as the normal meat just by doing blade tenderization.
New research shows blade tenderizing, injection marinating and vacuum tumbling severe woody breast meat leads to better moisture retention and reduced severity.
Final thoughts
For intact fillets, woody breast syndrome negatively impacts the textural, visual and quality characteristics of the product. Moisture enhancement will improve quality, Thippareddi said, but not significantly. It is possible to remove the woodiest portions of the breast and use the cut as a normal breast fillet.
Woodiness, however, can be overcome by processing. Even with a severe woody breast product, grinding and chopping, along with flavoring and other ingredients, can produce a chicken sausage, cooked or fresh, or hot dog that is not discernably different than one made with normal meat.
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