Meta-analysis on beef cattle carcass chilling loss

Abstract The objective of this work was to evaluate, through meta-analysis, the factors that influence the weight loss of beef cattle carcass during chilling. Scientific articles were searched on Scielo and Google Scholar platforms, following the PICO tool, which refers to population, intervention, comparison, and outcome, using the terms beef cattle, carcasses, sex of the animal, and the chilling loss, respectively. The following filters for the articles were used: peer view, English or Portuguese, and dated from 1990 onwards. The total of 154 articles were found on Scielo and 136 on Google Scholar. The database comprised 47 selected articles based on title, abstract criteria, and a final selection regarding data presentation. The Iterated Principal Factor method was used with the Varimax rotation method. The path diagram was used to show the factored model results. The variance of chilling breakage was ranked using a statistical software. The breakdown of bovine carcasses on chilling ranges from 0.47% to 4.93%, with an average of 2.24%. Better conformations and greater fat thickness determine lower carcass chilling losses. Higher body weights at slaughter and hot and cold carcasses provide smaller breaks in the carcass chilling whereas moisture loss depends on the animal size. Meta-analytical methods allow evaluating a larger number of samples, which indicate better values for variations, such as the influence of the animal size.