Threshold levels of boar taint compounds
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Research partners: University of Bristol
Sponsors: BPEX
Project duration: 2007 – 2008
This studentship examined the published evidence that has attempted to define ‘threshold’ levels of skatole and androstenone above which people detect unacceptably high ‘abnormal odour’ in pork. It also conducted original research to define thresholds.
Fifty backfat samples from entire male pigs of different breeds that had different concentrations of skatole and androstenone were used. The range of skatole was 0.1 to 2.5 µg/g fat and the range of androstenone was 0.5 to 3.0 µg/g fat. Samples were cooked in foil trays in an oven at 100ºC for 10 minutes then placed in small bottles which were sniffed by 10 taste panellists who scored abnormal odour on an 8-point scale.
The results supported earlier findings for British consumers – skatole was more important in determining abnormal odour than androstenone, with skatole explaining 46% of the variation on abnormal odour and androstenone explaining just 6%. A score of five for abnormal odour (slightly strong) was considered to be unacceptable and this occurred at a skatole concentration of around 5.0µg/g, a higher threshold than is normally assumed.