Fanuel Kapute

Department of Fisheries Science, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Mzuzu University, P/Bag 201, Luwinga, Mzuzu 2, Malawi
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 19   doi: 10.5376/ija.2016.06.0019
Received: 17 May, 2016    Accepted: 13 Oct., 2016    Published: 28 Nov., 2016

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Kapute F., 2016, Sensory, microbiological, biochemical and physico-chemical assessment of freshness and quality of fresh Lake Malawi tilapia (Chambo) stored in ice, International Journal of Aquaculture, 6(19): 1-10 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2016.06.0019)

Sensory, microbiological, biochemical and physico-chemical methods were used to assess freshness and quality of fresh Lake Malawi Tilapia (Local name: Chambo) to compare their effectiveness and reliability. Fresh Chambo samples were rejected by the sensory panel after 16 days from day of catch with a strong linear correlation (P < 0.01, R² = 0.95) between sensory quality scores and storage time in ice. Highest bacterial load of 1.6×10⁷ cfu/g, cfu/cm² was observed on day 15 coinciding with sensory rejection time. TMA-N and TVB-N for freshly caught fish was 0.7 and 5.1 mg/100g, which increased to 3.4 and 26.4 mg/100g respectively at the time of sensory rejection also correlating with increased bacteria load in the fish. Initial pH of the fresh fish muscle was close to neutral (6.47), and reached its lowest point (5.84) on day 16 which was sensory rejection time. Findings suggest that sensory evaluation is reliable in the absence of the other methods. TMA-N is not a reliable method for assessing freshness quality of Lake Malawi Tilapia due to insignificant readings. pH showed to be a quick freshness indicator with an understanding that muscle pH for live fish is generally neutral and increases as deterioration of the quality of fish progresses in storage. Rejection of fish samples before reaching unacceptable microbial limits in this study, underpins the need for using more than one method for accurate freshness and quality assessments of fresh fish.

Sensory; Microbiological; Biochemical; Freshness; Quality; Lake Malawi tilapia