Influence of meat exudates on the quality characteristics of fresh and freeze-thawed pork

•Purge exuded from pork steaks increased during freeze-thawing or with storage.•Freeze-thawing increased drip loss and WBSF.•Freeze-thawing decreased moisture content, cooking loss, and the L* and a* values.•Purge loss was correlated with total protein content, TPC, pH, and cooking loss.

The influence of the accumulated exudates released from pork loin of itself on the quality characteristics of fresh and freeze-thawed pork during cold storage was investigated. Pork loins were divided into four groups (fresh pork with exudates, fresh pork without exudates, freeze-thawed pork with exudates and freeze-thawed pork without exudates) and stored at 1.0 °C for 7 days. Exudate amount increased due to freeze-thawing and with storage, and most quality traits such as drip loss, cooking loss, tenderness, lightness, redness, and moisture content were affected by freeze-thawing (p < 0.05). Freeze-thaw increased drip loss but decreased moisture content, cooking loss, tenderness, lightness and redness of meat (p < 0.05). Microbial growth was solely affected by exudate removal and the removal of initial exudates decreased microbial growth (p < 0.05). Exudates were positively correlated with total protein content and total plate count but negatively correlated with pH and cooking loss. Therefore, removing meat exudates and avoiding freeze can slow down the quality deterioration of pork during cold storage.