Current Nutritional Approaches to Maintain and Improve Broiler Meat Quality: Part-2 Functional Feed Additives

Abstract

Simple Summary Poultry meat is widely consumed because it is a nutritious, affordable, and easily digestible source of protein. Improving its quality and nutritional value is therefore important for consumers and the poultry industry. This review summarizes how functional feed additives, including probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, organic acids, plant-based additives, natural antioxidants, vitamins, and trace minerals, can improve poultry meat physicochemical quality, nutritional value, and oxidative stability. These additives can consistently enhance meat tenderness and its ability to retain water, whereas their effects on meat acidity (pH) and color are more variable and depend on the additive type, dose, and chemical form. They may also improve the nutritional value of meat by increasing beneficial fatty acids and reducing less desirable saturated fats. Importantly, several of these additives—particularly plant-based additives, natural antioxidants, and trace minerals—protect meat from chemical deterioration caused by oxidation, a key determinant of post-slaughter meat quality retention and a major challenge in commercial poultry production, as reflected by reduced biochemical markers of lipid and protein oxidation. Although some additives, particularly synbiotics and organic acids, show variable effects on certain meat characteristics, their overall potential for improving meat quality, nutritional value, and oxidative stability is promising. The use of functional feed additives may therefore provide practical benefits for poultry producers by improving meat physicochemical quality, nutritional composition, and oxidative stability under the conditions examined in the reviewed studies. Claims regarding economic return, extended shelf life in the strict sense, or human health outcomes were beyond the scope of the primary studies reviewed and are not asserted here.