Pork belly softness is a major quality defect that has reduced processors’ and packers’ profitability because of its effect on fabrication efficiency, bacon shelf stability, sensory quality and bacon slicing yield. Despite the importance of pork belly softness, however, its effective assessment, control and application in belly sorting procedure in the industry has been mostly hampered because there are so many factors contributing to its overall perception. The present research attempted to explore various physical and compositional factors that may influence pork belly softness that will provide easier assessment for further processing and pork belly sorting for various market requirements.

To look at this, 198 pigs of three different genotypes (Duroc, Lacombe and Iberian crossbred), two sexes (barrow and gilt), two slaughter weights (264 and 308 pounds) and three different diets (flaxseed, canola and control) were utilized in this study to comprehensively represent the potential variability in the pork marketplace. Following a 24-hour chill, left bellies were fabricated and belly softness assessed using both an objective measure of belly flop angle and a five-point subjective scale. Physical factors including measures of belly thickness, length, width and weight were collected from the pork bellies. Compositional factors including proximate analysis, fatty acid profile and iodine value (IV) were also determined on three predetermined pork belly layers (lean, subcutaneous fat and seam fat).  Because variation in fatty acid profiles is often implicated in belly softness, we have also selected a few individual fatty acids alongside the IV to be included as part of the compositional predictors in the model.