Deterioration of fish muscle during chilled storage

Intensive feeding and broodstock selection in fish farming permits rapid fish growth to market size. Most effort in fish farming has focused on growth and carcass yield and not the product quality. The quality of muscle food is closely related to its text ure. While tenderisation is desirable for meat the opposite is the case for fish (normally referred to as softening). Softening of the muscle will influence the integrity and make the muscle to fragile to process by machine or by hand, which will also inf luence the yield and quality of the fish. The main objective of this project is to enhance the knowledge about post mortem mechanisms influencing the textural properties of muscle of farmed and wild cod during chilled storage. The project aims at underst anding the mechanisms of the post mortem processes leading to muscle softening and liquid loss. Knowledge about these post mortem processes may provide valuable information to be used in optimising feed composition relevant for the quality of farmed cod. Furthermore, it may give information useful in optimising storage and processing time.