Effective Seafood Preservation Technology Essential to Maintain Food Safety
One could easily be tempted to believe that any creature which spends all of its life in saltwater should be guaranteed free of any microorganisms that might spoil its texture and taste or prove harmful to the humans who consume them. Even though it is true that brine has long been used to preserve fish and other fruits of the sea, its salt content only serves to delay the inevitable. Once clear of the ocean, seafood requires more effective preservation technology to maintain its palatability and to protect the consumer.
Before the advent of refrigerated factory ships, salting, smoking, steeping in brine, and packing in ice were the main methods used to prevent freshly caught fish from deteriorating when landed. In practice, marine creatures are not quite as pristine clean as most people tend to imagine. Beneath the waves, synergistic relationships between commensal life forms and even parasitism are quite common and some of those passengers are less innocuous when their hosts are plucked from the sea. Consequently, further improvements to seafood preservation technology are constantly being sought.
Salting and smoking are both effective methods of halting the tendency for rapid post-mortem deterioration characteristic of most fish. However, the dried, salted cod favoured by the Portuguese and known as bacalao, and the smoked herrings more commonly known as kippers, undergo changes in flavour and texture that may not be to everyone’s taste. To maintain marine delicacies in a more natural state prior to consumption, the use of specially formulated chemical products is among the most effective forms of seafood preservation technology in current use.
Apart from its ability to perform the promised function, the first requirement of a chemical preservative is that it should pose no threat to the consumer. For example, there is now a widespread ban on the use of formaldehyde for this purpose, due to its potentially toxic properties. That said, some less scrupulous fisheries still use it illicitly to cut costs. Tequisa is a Spanish company that is widely recognised as a leader and innovator in the field of seafood preservation technology. With more than 100 products developed to date, our production standards comply fully with all the quality-control procedures applicable to the EU, America’s FDA, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, and the World Health Organisation.
All the ingredients used in the manufacture of Tequisa products are food grade and, where possible, obtained from natural sources. They have also undergone rigorous testing to confirm that they are able to perform as promised. Among the many superior products of Tequisa’s advanced seafood preservation technology is an additive named TQI ANPEX PRE BF. A water-soluble powder that is odourless and safe to handle, its purpose is to preserve the texture and to stabilise the natural colour of peeled prawns, crab meat, and lobster before they are frozen or deep-frozen.
Other Tequisa products include an additive used for the glazing of fish products after freezing and another whose purpose is to prevent the blackening process known as melanosis that can spoil the natural appearance of molluscs, crustaceans, and cephalopods. These world-renowned products of Tequisa’s cutting-edge seafood preservation technology are all available in fishing ports throughout South Africa.
