Manual de avaliação de carcaças bovinas

Abstract

The Brazilian beef industry is going through a period of transformation, marked by the recent increase in the number of carcass bonus programs. These bonuses, so far, are mainly based on hot carcass weight, age, sex and finish of the carcasses. However, not far from what we can imagine, the Brazilian beef production chain will experience advances in the evaluation and classification systems of carcasses, with bonuses based on the yield of cuts in deboning and on the quality of the meat, based on quantitative and qualitative measures of the carcasses, respectively. This manual provides illustrations of the main carcass evaluation practices carried out in the slaughter room, with the carcass still hot (Chapter 1) or after cooling (Chapter 2). In each chapter, evaluation methodologies and practical tips are presented for their realization concurrently with the routine activities of a meatpacking industry, thus making it possible to apply these evaluations on a large scale.