Déterminants de la qualité des produits animaux

INRA Département PHASE, Theix, 63122 Saint-Genès-Champanelle

^* jbc@clermont.inra.fr

Abstract

The characteristics of animal products depend on a number of factors linked both to cheese-making technology and to the chemical and microbiological characteristics of the raw material used. These characteristics are themselves dependent on upstream factors (genetic, physiological, or dietary). Those upstream factors have increasingly been the focus of consumers’concern, in particular those related to animal feeding. They take special importance in the case of labelled products (Protected Designation of Origin [PDO], Protected Geographical Indication [PDI], etc.) which claim close links with production conditions. During last years, a number of works have been done to precise, in experimental conditions, the effects of each of these factors on the different dimensions of quality (sensorial, nutritional, hygienic…), as well as their integrated effects when they are observed in a more systemic approach, in the frame of farming systems. Examples from different species (poultry, pork, fish, bovine) are given to illustrate some of these effects.