VISUAL QUALITY AND NUTRITIONAL IMPACT: EVALUATING THE INTRODUCTION OF A VISUAL STANDARD IN POULTRY PRODUCTION

The poultry industry, particularly the production of chicken and turkey, has recorded notable growth in recent years, driven by increasing consumer demand for affordable, protein-rich, and nutritionally balanced foods. Within this evolving market, product appearance has become a key determinant in purchasing behavior, with various visual aspects such as colour uniformity, shape, and presentation. To meet this need, a Standard Product Datasheet was developed in collaboration with an Italian poultry processing company as an internal quality control tool, aimed at guiding operators in the visual standardization of semi-finished products like arrosticini, skewers, and roasts. The datasheet was evaluated through a structured sampling campaign conducted at the company’s production site, both before and after its implementation. Product conformity was assessed using three predefined categories: compliant, medium compliant, and non compliant. To further explore the relationship between visual appearance and product composition, an analytical phase was carried out on arrosticini samples, both chicken-only and chicken-turkey blends. A multidisciplinary analytical approach was applied, incorporating physical-chemical parameters (moisture and crude fat content), colorimetric values (L*, a*, b*, ΔE), and fatty acid profiles, with particular attention to C14:0, C16:0, C18:1 c, SFA and PUFA content, and the UFAs/SFA ratio. While the introduction of the Standard Product Datasheet did not completely eliminate visual variability, highlighting the role of raw material heterogeneity and manual processing, it contributed to a more structured and objective visual assessment process. Notably, samples showed greater variability across compliance levels, particularly in crude fat content and colour parameters. ANOVA confirmed these differences, revealing statistically significant variations (p < 0.05) in both ΔE values and fat content among the samples. Moreover, data belonging to Fatty Acids analysis confirm that compliance level affects the fatty acids composition, which may, in turn, influence the nutritional and oxidative stability of the final product reflecting on the visual aspect. Differences, as expected, are also highlighted by taking in considerations the different arrosticini formulations. These findings support the use of the Standard Product Datasheet as an effective quality assurance tool, not only for enhancing visual consistency, but also for establishing significant correlations between product appearance and its compositional and nutritional attributes, thus offering valuable insights for broader process optimization strategies.