Twenty-four Large White  Landrace pigs were individually fed, from 50 to 90 kg live weight, either a control (CONT) diet containing palm oil or one of three diets based on full-fat rapeseed (250 g kg À1 ) (diets RD). The RD diets were supplemented with 0, 200 or 500 mg DL-a-tocopherol acetate (ATA) kg À1 diet (diets RD0, RD200 and RD500 respectively). Diets were formulated to be isonitrogenous and isocaloric. Daily live weight gain was signi®cantly increased (p `0.01) in pigs fed diet RD500. Plasma AT concentration was signi®cantly increased by dietary supplementation with 200 mg ATA kg À1 but showed no further signi®cant increase by supplementation with 500 mg ATA kg À1 . At slaughter, after 45 days, carcass weights were increased for the RD500 group but dressing percentage was unaffected. ATA supplementation signi®cantly reduced drip loss on days 4 and 5±7 in fresh muscle and on days 1 and 4 in frozen muscle. The concentrations of calcium, sodium and potassium in drip loss ¯uid collected on days 1 and 4 from fresh muscle were not signi®cantly affected by treatment or by time of collection and did not suggest any change in the relative contribution of intra-and extracellular ¯uid to total drip loss. Plasma enzyme activities related to tissue damage (creatine kinase, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and lactate dehydrogenase) were not in¯uenced by dietary treatments.