Pork Quality and the Role of Market Organization

Pork quality is the set of characteristics that make meat desirable. Those characteristics might be determined by: aesthetics (taste, smell, texture, and color); nutrition (vitamins, proteins, minerals, energy, type and proportion of fat); safety (absence of pathogens or toxins); intangible qualities (organic, or meat produced under high standards of animal welfare); and qualities such as convenience and reliability. Pork processors identify several other determinants of pork quality: low “drip loss,” or fluid lost from fresh, uncooked pork; color and color consistency; limited external fat; and absence of defects (Morgan et al., 1994).