Making sure your meat looks good

State–of–the–art digital colour imaging is helping our clients to ensure that their meat products are attractive and appealing to the consumer. The DigiEye system captures consistent images with precision, providing a faithful reproduction of the original product appearance.
Visual appearance is very important in the quality assessment of meat and poultry products. An unacceptable colour or the presence of specific defects may lead to rejection by the consumer, resulting in loss of revenue and an increase in waste.
As an example of its usefulness, a workshop was set up at Campden BRI between a retailer and all of their poultry suppliers. Each product was assessed in turn to establish tolerance limits of acceptable and non-acceptable visual quality characteristics, which both the retailers and their suppliers agreed to. These images were captured by the DigiEye colour imaging system and a complete set of customised specifications was prepared for the suppliers to work to.
Measurement of colour
As well as the ability to accurately and reproducibly capture images, the DigiEye can also be used to describe the variations in colour of a product. This means, for example, that the visual appearance of streaks of fat in lean meat, or of colour change from one part of the meat piece to another can be precisely analysed.

Contact: Liz Mulvey
+44(0)1386 842122
liz.mulvey@campdenbri.co.uk