Matching Diverse (Quality of) Supply with Market Differentiation Opportunities in the Pork Chain

Abstract

Currently, in most pork chains there is still a mismatch between delivered quality and expected quality, leading to unsatisfied customers and value losses because products are not sold against the best possible price. Differentiation of quality of pork starts already in the breeding stage, depends on feeding and living conditions of the animals at the farmer stage and is also influenced by the way the animals are transported and slaughtered. At the breeding stage a lot of research is being done that will eventually make it possible to use DNA technology to help guide breeding programs and to better predict the quality of animals and meat. However, because pigs are living creatures with a natural variation, 100% prediction accuracy is not to be expected and slaughterhouses still will have to cope with a large variation in quality characteristics, even within batches that come from the same farmer.
This article focuses on what research challenges lay ahead related to the question how (natural) quality variation in the pork chain can better be used to bring the right quality at the right time at the right price to the right customer in the European pork net

‐chain. It will thereby focus on the slaughterhouse link. (more....)