Effective Seafood Quality Control is Crucial to Consumers and Fisheries
Few people still enjoy the luxury of purchasing their milk, vegetables, and fruit directly from the farmer or collecting fresh fish straight from the quayside as it arrives onshore. Most inhabitants of sprawling cities, such as Johannesburg and Pretoria, tend to live far from the nation’s fishing ports and farms. Instead, they must stock their cupboards and refrigerators with the processed foods stocked by local supermarkets. Like other edibles on supermarket shelves, seafood requires effective quality control (QC) measures to ensure its safety and integrity.
QC may take many different forms. For example, in the automotive and aerospace industries, its primary purpose may be to ensure that various crucial components are of the correct size or perform adequately in stress tests. In the case of a brewery, its goal could be to keep an eye on the colour, clarity, and alcohol content of its products. Within the fishing industry, QC is all about keeping the customer safe and happy. To achieve this, seafood quality control must address several parameters.
Of these, the prime concern must always be customer safety. All animals and plants play host to bacteria and viruses. While most are harmless or even beneficial, some are potential pathogens. Fish are particularly susceptible to colonisation by bacteria. But, due to their saltwater environment, these uninvited guests seldom cause them harm. However, once removed from the sea, although the fish cannot survive, the bacteria can live on almost indefinitely, feeding on the flesh of their dead hosts and causing putrefaction. Fortunately, seafood quality control measures are in place to prevent this.
Salting, smoking, and pickling are all proven methods to prevent fish from deteriorating. Alternatively, refrigeration offers a means to slow its decomposition while awaiting a more permanent solution and will not affect its taste. The real problems with fish species, crustaceans, molluscs, and other marine creatures begin when they reach the quayside. Even though post-mortem changes may not render them unsafe to eat, they can affect their taste, texture, and colour sufficiently to impact the price they will fetch at auction. Such changes might even deter agents and retailers from bidding. Hence seafood quality control measures to prevent undesirable changes are just as essential to the success of those who catch the fish as they are to the satisfaction of those who will eventually consume them.
There are now many effective products to rid fish of bacteria that render less desirable sterilising agents, such as formalin, unnecessary. Nevertheless, post-mortem changes in fish can also occur spontaneously due to the abnormal action of enzymes on proteins and other compounds present in their flesh and must be prevented. TQI MELACIDE P/4 ST is an example of a seafood quality control product developed for this purpose. Its purpose is to inhibit the blackening effect known as melanosis, as this can spoil the natural pink or white colour of prawns. While this effect is unsightly, it is harmless and does not affect the prawn’s taste. Nevertheless, most consumers would avoid buying prawns showing this discolouration.
The above-named product is just one of many manufactured by Tequisa, a world leader in the development of seafood quality control products. These also include preparation to preserve or enhance the colour, taste, and texture of various marine species.
