Fish Microbiology and Quality Assurance

Unit 9 - Assurance and management quality of fish

9.1. Assessment of fish quality
Assessment of quality is necessary to safeguard consumers against any risk associated with consumption of fresh and processed fishery products. Several methods have been developed and are available for measuring fish quality. However, only some have been found to be suitable for assessing the quality while others failed to be used in routine analysis due to the limitations in the form of inaccuracy, impracticability, high cost, need for specialist, and suitability only for research or product development.

Methods for assessing quality
The methods of assessing fish quality can be conveniently classified into following groups;

• Sensory methods.
• Physical methods.
• Biochemical methods.
• Microbiological methods.
• Statistical methods.

Quality assessment methods have undergone a rapid change since early days of introduction of quality control programme wherein product quality evaluation mainly based on sensory methods. However, scientific developments in food quality assessment accompanied with innovations in instrumentation techniques have become very useful in in measuring product quality. Further, statistical methods have also been introduced to ensure collection of representative sample for analysis and to interpret the results.