Solving the Mystery of the Woody Chicken Breast

Food Manufacturing recently published an interesting short video by Tech Insider on a topic that has mystified the poultry industry for several years. The industry has recognized that the quality of some chicken breast has changed over the years.  White stripes along with a harder, “woody” texture have been occasionally showing up in chicken breast impacting its textural quality and cooking characteristics. Has the mystery now been solved? Watch the video to find out what researchers have discovered.

It was delightful to observe that Tech Insider included a screenshot of a Poultry Science Association paper written by Mr. Vishwesh Tijare, Dr. Casey Owens, and several other co-authors. The video works off of the article and Mr. Tijare’s Masters thesis, “Meat Quality of Broiler Chicken Breast Fillets with White Striping and Woody Breast Muscle Myopathies.”  The thesis and article use the Meullenet-Owens razor shear (MORS) technique on our instruments to quantify the degree of textural impact of the “woody” texture. We have several application studies on testing chicken such as “Chicken - Multiple Methods of Testing Whole & Shredded Chicken” which uses the MORS technique.  You may request that study (and others) here:

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