**5. Conclusions**

The lipid profile of chicken fat by-products from the three farms was similar (with low coe fficients of variation), despite factors associated with their di fferent geographical locations (as long as the birds were fed a similar diet) which is very important finding for their potential application as a fat source in the formulation of meat products. The predominant fatty acids in chicken fat by-products were oleic, palmitic and linoleic acids, showing higher amount of unsaturated fatty acids than recorded for traditional fat sources used to make meat products. As regards the colour properties, chicken fat by-products had colour coordinate values that were in the range of those of chicken skin, which is the usual fat source in the meat industry. However, melting and re-solidification caused severe changes in the reflectance spectrum. In view of these results, chicken fat by-products could be used as fat ingredient in sausage formulations to partially or totally substitute traditionally used solid fat sources with their higher saturated fatty acid concentrations.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, J.F.-L. and L.M.-P.S.; methodology, L.M.-P.S. and J.A.P.-A.; validation, L.M.-P.S. and J.A.P.-A.; investigation, J.F.-L. and J.A.P.-A.; resources, L.M.-P.S.; writing—original draft preparation, L.M.-P.S.; writing—review and editing, J.F.-L. and J.A.P.-A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** IPOA researchers are members of the HealthyMeat network, funded by CYTED (ref. 119RT0568).

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

**Ethics statement:** This research and the rearing and slaughter of chickens were carried out in accordance with the National Committee Guidelines (Colombia) on animal testing and care.
