Principal component analysis of sensory properties of chicken breast muscle supplemented with different feed additives

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to examine the effect of different dietary supplements (bee pollen, propolis, and probiotic) on sensory quality of chicken breast muscle. The experiment was performed with 180 one day-old Ross 308 broiler chicks of mixed sex. The dietary treatments were as follows: 1. basal diet with no supplementation as control (C); 2. basal diet plus 400 mg bee pollen extract per 1 kg of feed mixture (E1); 3. basal diet plus 400 mg propolis extract per 1 kg of feed mixture (E2); 4. basal diet plus 3.3 g probiotic preparation based on Lactobacillus fermentum added to drinking water (E3). Sensory properties of chicken breast muscle were assessed by a five-member panel that rated the meat for aroma, taste, juiciness, tenderness and overall acceptability. The ANOVA results for each attribute showed that at least one mean score for any group differs significantly (p ≤0.05). Subsequent Tukey's HSD revealed that only C group had significantly higher mean score (p ≤0.05) for each attribute compared with E2 group. As regards the E1 and E3 groups, there were not significant differences (p >0.05) in aroma, taste and tenderness when compared to C group, with the significantly lowest juiciness value (p ≤0.05) found in E3 group and significantly lower values of overall acceptability in both groups (p ≤0.05). In addition, it is noteworthy that control group received the highest raking scores for each sensory attribute, i.e. the supplements did not influence positively the sensory quality of chicken breast meat. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the sensory data showed that the first 3 principal components (PCs) explained 69.82% of the total variation in 5 variables. Visualisation of extracted PCs has shown that groups were very well represented, with E2 group clearly distinguished from the others. 

Keywords

• chicken meat
• sensory attribute
• dietary supplement
• PCA