An important issue for the poultry research is the understanding of rigor mortis installation during the birds slaughtering maneuver in order to obtaining better meat quality. The aim of this work was to evaluate the establishment of glycolysis in turkey breast meat (pectoralis major) under commercial processing line conditions by monitoring the onset of rigor mortis. During muscle glycolysis the existent glycogen would produce lactic acid thus lowering the pH value. The experiment was conducted using turkey BUT-9 lineage of 109 days old. Samples (n=40) were divided equally into 2 groups: T1 followed the routine procedures of industrial cooling at averaged temperature of -4°C for 10h and T2 was cooled at 4ºC for 26h. Temperature analysis were performed in fillet samples after 0.06h (4min), 1h, 4h, 5h, 6h, 7h, 9h, 10h, 24h e 26h post-mortem. The average initial carcass temperature and pH for both groups were similar (p>0.05) at 40.2ºC, 6.42 and at 40.4ºC, 6.44, respectively. After 4h post-mortem T2 group carcass presented pH value of 5.70 and temperature of 27°C thus the rigor was already established. As for T1 group the pH value was 5.90 at 12°C and its final rigor mortis was completed after 24h post-mortem, with the ultimate pH value of 5.69 at storage temperature of 3°C. These results indicated that the storage temperature influences dramatically the onset of muscle glycolysis. As conclusion, we can state that the evaluation of turkey breast meat quality under commercial management should be carried out in samples refrigerated at 3°C after 24h post-mortem.