One of the key challenges currently facing the pork industry is a lack of insight into the relationship between loin, belly, and ham quality. Most published research focuses on loin, belly, or ham quality independent of each other rather than a whole-carcass quality assessment. It is unclear whether pigs with high quality loins will yield high quality hams or bellies. Therefore, the primary objective of this research was to correlate fresh loin quality with fresh belly quality and fresh and processed ham quality.

Pigs (8,042 total) raised in eight different barns representing two different production focuses were used in this study. Producers of pigs in four of the barns employed production programs focused on lean growth of pigs. Producers of pigs in the other four barns employed production programs focused on carcass/meat quality. Approximately half of the pigs were raised during the hot months and slaughtered in July, August, and September. The other half were raised in the cold months and slaughtered in February and March. All pigs were raised in the Midwest US and slaughtered at one Midwestern plant. Identity of the carcasses were maintained throughout the slaughter process to allow for meat quality relationships of the loin, belly, fresh ham, and processed ham to be determined. In total, 7,684 carcasses were evaluated.