The company invited to taste and identify three types of hams from a female, a castrated male and an immunocastrated male with Improvac.. The challenge was accepted by 137 people, 15% of whom guess correctly the origin of each ham.

Pfizer was at the VI World Ham Congress, which gathered together the best scientists, experts, producers and marketers in the ham sector and where the company had a booth concentrated on the vaccine that uses the pig’s own immune system against boar taint.

The company invited to taste and identify three types of hams from a female, a male and an immunocastrated male. The challenge was accepted by 137 people, of whom only 15% matched the origin of each ham. The average rating for the ham from physically castrated males was 7.6 on 10, 7,5 for the vaccinated male ham and 6.5. for the female one.

In addition, Marina Gispert (Institut de Recerca i Food Technology – IRTA) and Clemente Lopez (Animal Production Department of the Complutense University of Madrid – UCM) presented the lecture «Castration and immunocastration». They indicated that the quality of meat and carcass in vaccinated animals is similar to the ones from physically castrated males and those from females, thus immunocastration can be considered as an effective and viable alternative to physical castration.