Organoleptic quality of fish and fish products

Introduction

Safe Food for Canadians (SFC) licence holders, both domestic food businesses and importers, have a responsibility to prepare and import safe and suitable food – this includes fish and fish products of acceptable organoleptic quality.

This document provides guidance on assessing the organoleptic quality of fish and fish products to ensure they are suitable for human consumption.

Purpose

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) created this document as guidance to help food businesses comply with the requirements set out in the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations, particularly subsection 8(1)(c).

Organoleptic quality

The organoleptic quality of a food affects how a consumer experiences the food via their senses (look, taste, smell, and touch). The SFCR uses the terms "filthy, putrid, disgusting, rotten, decomposed, or diseased" to describe organoleptic properties that are not permitted in food intended for interprovincial trade, import, or export. Following are examples of foods that present these properties and are considered unsuitable.

• Food with an offensive or objectionable odour, colour, texture or substance associated with spoilage, such as
  • persistent, distinct and uncharacteristic odour including but not limited to: fruity, vegetable, stale, musty, yeasty, sour, faecal, ammonia, hydrogen sulphide, bilge-like and putrid
  • discolouration which is uncharacteristic of the food and type of process, such as flushed pink, dark brown, green or yellowish to orange colours
  • tissue structure which is very tough, dry, mealy or chalky; or tissue structure which is very soft, mushy, or pasty
• Food with a disagreeable odour or taste of decomposed oil or fat (rancid)
• Food with abnormal odours due to contamination by substances such as solvents, soaps, fuel, oil, and greases
• Food containing parasites
• Food containing visible foreign matter

The SFCR also includes quality-related standards in the Canadian Standards of Identity: Volume 3 – Fish and the Canadian Grade Compendium: Volume 8 – Fish.

Sensory evaluations

The organoleptic quality of fish or a fish product can be determined by conducting sensory evaluations for various attributes such as appearance, flavour, odour and texture.

Sensory evaluations should be conducted by someone that has the competency to perform objective assessments.

• The Codex Alimentarius Guidelines for the sensory evaluation of fish and shellfish in laboratories (CXG 31-1999) provides recommendations on how to set up a sensory lab, including training for sensory assessors.

Information on the sensory evaluation of specific fish and fish products, including essential quality factors, sampling plans, defect definitions and lot acceptance criteria, can be found in the relevant Codex standard. These standards are available on the Codex Alimentarius website, including standards for:

• quick frozen finfish, uneviscerated and eviscerated (CXS 36-1981)
• canned finfish (CXS 119-1981)
• fresh and quick frozen raw scallop products (CXS 315-2014)
• frozen blocks of fish fillets, minced fish flesh and mixtures of fillets and minced fish flesh (CXS 165-1989)
• salted fish and dried salted fish (CXS 167-1989)
• quick frozen shrimps or prawns (CXS 92-1981)
• smoked fish, smoke-flavoured fish and smoke-dried fish (CXS 311-2013)
• fish oils (CXS 329-2017)
• canned salmon (CXS 3-1981)
• canned shrimps and prawns (CX 37-1991)
• canned tuna and bonito (CX 70-1981)
• canned crabmeat (CX 90-1981)
• canned sardines and sardine-type products (CX 94-1981)
• frozen lobsters (CX 95-1981)
• frozen fish sticks (fish fingers, fish portions, and fish fillets-breaded or in batter
• salted fish and dried salted fish of the Gadidae family of fishes
• quick frozen fish fillets
• quick frozen raw squid
• salted Atlantic herring and salted sprat
• live and raw bivalve molluscs
• fish sauce
• live abalone and raw fresh chilled or frozen abalone for direct consumption or for further processing
• fresh and quick frozen raw scallop products

Hygienic practices

The organoleptic quality of ingredients and finished food products can deteriorate if they are not handled in a hygienic manner. The preventive control requirements in Part 4 of the SFCR are intended to help ensure the preparation of safe and suitable food. Food businesses are responsible for complying with these requirements. Importers are responsible for ensuring that the food they import has been manufactured, prepared, stored, packaged and labelled under similarly hygienic conditions.

• The Codex Alimentarius Code of practice for fish and fishery products (CAC/RCP-52-2003) and CFIA's The Quality Management Program approach to a preventive control plan provide recommended hygienic practices for processing fish and fish products so that they are safe and suitable for human consumption.

Personnel should have competency in sensory evaluation to ensure incoming lots of fish are of acceptable organoleptic quality.

Supplementary methods for assessing organoleptic quality

Microbiological analysis for indicator organisms of spoilage and poor quality can provide additional confirmation that your product is of acceptable organoleptic quality.

When fish is decomposing, substances such as histamine, indole, biogenic amines (putrescine, cadaverine) and total volatile base nitrogen (TVBN) are produced, some of which are also harmful to human health above safe levels. Testing for these substances can serve as an indicator of decomposition and can be used to corroborate the results from sensory analysis.

• Refer to Health Canada's Maximum levels for chemical contaminants in foods, Table 1 for the maximum level of histamines permitted in fish and fish products

References