Flavour, one of the most important factors affecting consumers’
meat-buying behaviour and preferences, comprises mainly of taste and aroma. The
cooked meat flavour, that is important from the producer and consumer point of
view, is affected by several pre- and post-slaughter factors, including breed,
diet, post-mortem ageing, and method of
cooking. Moreover, chicken meat is prone to the development of off-flavours
through lipid oxidation, which reduce the quality of the chicken meat. The aim
of this review is to discuss the main factors affecting cooked chicken meat
flavour which helps producers and consumers to produce the most flavoured and
consistent product possible. Cooked chicken meat flavour is thermally derived
via the Maillard reaction, the degradation of lipids, and interaction between
these two reactions. Factors affecting the flavour of cooked chicken meat were
identified as breed/strain of the chicken, diet of the bird, presence of free
amino acids and nucleotides, irradiation, high pressure treatment, cooking,
antioxidants, pH, and ageing.