The accuracy of FOM instrument used in on-line pig carcass classification in the Czech Republic

The objective of this study was to document the accuracy of the classification equipment used in the Czech Republic with respect to measurement errors in lean meat percentage prediction such as point of measurement error, equipment error as well as operator error. To this end, a total of 720 pigs were measured in one abattoir. One can say from the results that the correlations between correct and surrogate measurements of fat depth are high (0.95-0.98), for muscle thickness they are lower ranging from 0.49 to 0.88, and for lean meat percentage they are in the range of 0.85-0.95. The lowest correlation (0.49) was calculated for muscle depth measurement between the 2nd and 3rd last rib when the place of measurement was moved 1 cm in the caudal direction, which influenced the level of the FOM correlation. It was further demonstrated that for the second insertion the differences in lean meat percentage prediction ranged from -6.07% to +9.29%. It was also demonstrated that various instruments provided identical measurements of fat depth (r = 0.57-0.97), while for muscle depth the performance was worse (r = 0.38–0.78), which caused a fluctuation in the prediction of lean meat percentage with differences ranging from -2.56% to +2.81%. It can also be concluded that a high agreement between operators was demonstrated for the determination of lean meat percentage (r = 0.71-0.80).