Spoilage and safety of cold-smoked fish (EU-FAIR CT95-1207)

In DK the annual export value of cold-smoked salmon is in the order of 150 mill. US $. It is a major problem for the industry that large amounts of products are rejected on the basis of microbiological counts that do not show any relation to the organoleptic quality of the product.
The primary objective of the project is to identify indices of quality of cold-smoked salmon. Secondly methods to measure the indices of quality will be developed and validated on a European basis. Identification of indices of quality will be based on an approach where specific spoilage organisms (SSO) and individual chemical compounds that can be related to product shelf life are studied. At the same time a non-specific approach based on measurements of profiles of volatile compounds and other metabolites will be used in combination with multivariate statistical methods for identification of indices of quality.