Spent hen meat

Poultry industry in India is more scientific, better organized and continuously progressing towards modernization. Breeding and feeding management has improved through education, training, competition, expansion and survival instincts. The industry has witnessed several ups and downs in the last 25 years. India has 232 million layers and 2615 million broilers (FAOSTAT, 2008). Currently, it is growing at the rate of 10 percent in broilers and 6 to 7 percent in layers. This remarkable growth rate in broilers necessitates a massive thrust to market spent birds for meat purpose at the end of their production cycle.
Only 4.5 per cent of total birds produced in India are processed. The rest are sold live. The number of chicken processing units in the entire country is limited to single digits (the big ones being Venky’s Ltd of the VH group and Godrej Agrovet Ltd). A couple of smaller players operate in southern India.
The utilization of spent hens in further processing is one of the most neglected areas of the poultry processing industry. Spent hens are the by-product of egg industry. The meat from these birds is considered to be of low quality because of its age and relative toughness and therefore sold at a lower market price than broiler meat. The reasons for this decrease in textural quality are twofold. First, the average muscle fiber size increases and secondly, and more importantly, the collagen in the muscle connective tissue becomes more progressively tougher, more rigid and more resistant to heat and less easily denatured.
Though various methods have been documented to tenderize meat from spent hens by various workers with varying degrees of success it further adds to the cost of meat owing to the time and labor involved in the process. Further the availability of broiler meat all through the year to meet the local demand does not necessitate meat tenderization thereby diminishing the demand for spent hen meat.