Native chicken products, anyone?

MANILA, Philippines - With all the hype on crispy and flavorful plump chicken breasts and chunky thighs, it’s no wonder that most people, particularly the young ones, prefer eating commercially-bred broiler over native chicken meat.

But with more and more people becoming health conscious and preferring to eat lean, healthy and organically-grown foods, the demand for native chicken is on the rise.

Optimizing the healthful benefits of eating native chicken meat and promoting this growing backyard industry, the Food Science Cluster-College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) is developing and evaluating various products from native chicken meat to improve its eating quality.

The study titled, “Food Quality Evaluation of Native Chicken” led by Dr. Ma. Josie V. Sumague, was initiated in August 2009 through a funding support from the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR).

The study aims to evaluate and explore the potential of native chicken meat as substitute for broilers and to develop value-added processed products that will enhance and promote the marketability of native chicken meat.

Three native chicken breeds (Paraoakan, Banaba, and Joloanon) were used to study and compare their proximate composition and functional properties vis-à-vis that of the commercially breed broilers in terms color, aroma, structure (fibrous or compact), flavor, tenderness and general acceptability.

Preliminary results of the study showed that from the three native chicken breeds, Paraokan gave the highest meat yield (47 percent) and its breast and leg parts, the highest crude protein content. For the aroma, color and structure, all chicken samples scored an average mean score with no significant differentiation.

Based on the evaluation and study compositions, the Food Science Cluster was able to develop five processed and value-added products from native chicken. These are: 1) canned chicken products (chicken arrozcaldo, afritada, and tinola); 2) chicken nuggets; 3) chicken frankfurter; 4) chicken burger; and 5) corned chicken.

The group is still in the process fine-tuning and evaluating the quality and marketability of the products developed from native chicken meat. The group is hoping to complete the study in August 2010.