QUALITY DECAY OF FRESH PROCESSED FISH STORED UNDER REFRIGERATED CONDITIONS

The ability of commercial fresh fish to be processed to produce fresh-fish based hamburger was assessed in this work. In particular, four commercially important fish species, i.e., hake ( Merluccius merluccius ), mackerel ( Scomber scombrus ), sea bass ( Dicentrarchus labrax ) and sea bream ( Sparus aurata ) were packed in an aluminium/plastic laminated film, stored at 4C, and studied for changes in trimethylamine (TMA) and biogenic amines such as histamine, cadaverine, putrescine and spermidine. In terms of TMA content, results suggest that sea bass and sea bream resulted into species suitable to be fresh processed having a TMA acceptability limit of 5.5 and 10 days, respectively, whereas in the same conditions, hake and mackerel resulted highly perishable products with a TMA acceptability limit of 2.2 and 1.7 days, respectively. Concerning food safety related to histamine content, for the entire period of observation all species showed an amount lower than the maximum content allowed (100 ppm).

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

This work is an interesting investigation on the possibility to process fresh fish. The results of the research can be advantageously used by fish industry. The fish-based hamburger represents a strategic solution to overcome the barrier to fish consumption that is subjected to many influences among which one is the consideration of fish as time-consuming meal.