Effect of probiotics in poultry for improving meat quality

•Probiotics exhibit good potential for improvement of poultry meat quality.•Probiotics reduce total cholesterol and affect positively fatty acid profile of poultry meat.•Probiotics increase lipid oxidative stability of meat in poultry.

The ban on the use of antibiotic growth promotors in many countries in order to satisfy the consumers' demands for healthy and safe meat leads to increasing researchers' interest in finding strategies to maintain chicken health and production. Probiotics which are live microbial compounds are considered a good alternative to antibiotics, as their use in poultry diets has been associated with positive effects on health and growth in birds. Changes in growth performance often affect various meat quality traits and in this context, more and more recent research show that using probiotics as dietary supplements exhibit potential as a natural way to improve poultry meat quality. The review discusses the changes in the physicochemical characteristics as well as fatty acids profile and oxidative stability in poultry meat as affected by various probiotics added to the diet of the birds.