The composition of pork lard as a raw material in meat production

The quality of pork lard is closely related to several factors that affect the composition of fatty acids and therefore has a direct impact on the technological properties of the lard, especially the formation of soft lard, and causes problems during the production of dried sausages. A methodology of sampling lard from suppliers was developed, so that the measured values of fat composition represented an average value for an entire batch. Gas chromatography was applied to determine the composition of pork adipose tissue, and the data obtained was further evaluated using HP Chemstation. The final development procedure of adipose tissue sampling enables to evaluate the quality of pork lard imported from various parts of Europe. The content of unsaturated fatty acids exceeded 60%, whereas the content of polyunsaturated fatty acids ranged from 10% to 16%. These relatively high values may, however, cause severe problems in the production of durable sausages.