PO45 | PRELIMINARY QUALITATIVE-QUANTITATIVE STUDY ON SHEEP MEATS: ISLAMIC RITUAL OR CONVENTIONAL SLAUGHTER?

Giovanni Muresu Ibba¹, Martina Rega², Cristina Bacci², Antonio Poeta¹, Francesco Sardu³ | ¹Az. USL Reggio Emilia, Servizio Sanità Pubblica Veterinaria, Reggio Emilia, Italy; ²Dipartimento Scienze Medico Veterinarie Università di Parma, Italy; ³ASL5 Oristano, Servizio Igiene Alimenti Origine Animale, Oristano, Italy.

The concept of animal welfare at slaughter - regardless of the context in which it is applied - has resurfaced in European political discourse, despite the passage of many years since the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. Today, a major factor influencing consumer behavior and dominating social media discussions is the desire to improve animal protection standards during slaughter operations, often without considering the implications for food safety, meat quality, and commercial transparency. Our study aimed to evaluate carcass quality characteristics by comparing post-mortem parameters -specifically during chilling, aging, and shelf-life - across two groups of 50 animals each, sourced from the same supplier but processed at different slaughterhouses: one in the Emilia-Romagna region (province of Reggio Emilia) and the other in Sardinia (province of Oristano). The data confirmed that the tenderness, aging, and shelf-life of sheep meat are unaffected by the Islamic ritual slaughter method; furthermore, the absence of stunning does not confer - contrary to what is often suggested by misleading claims - any unique health-related attributes, and indeed sometimes results in non-compliance with food safety standards.