Lipid composition of retailed organic, free-range and conventional chicken breasts

Lipid fractions of 20 retailed chicken breasts were correlated with production system: organic, corn‐fed, free‐range and conventional. Neutral lipid (NL), phospholipid (PL) and free fatty acids (FFA) were examined separately. Influence of production systems was found more pronounced in PL composition than NLs. Corn‐fed and free‐range NLs had higher contents of nutritionally beneficial eicosapentanoic acid (C20:5 n‐3) and docosahexanoic acid (C22:6 n‐3) than organic and conventional. Lower polyunsaturated fatty acids in organic and free‐range PLs could be beneficial for tissue stability. Principal component product space for PLs showed clear clustering related to product category. In contrast, this was not observed with FFA except in the partial least square regression product space suggesting influences on NLs and PLs and FFA. PLs had lower contents of arachidonic acid than in earlier studies. Advantages were observed in lipid fractionation using advanced sorbent extraction matrices.