Eight to seventeen companies were selected in the four different European countries Ireland, Iceland, Denmark and The Netherlands. Each company represented a specific position in the value chain illustrated below. The following questions were asked:
- which points in your fishery production chain are in place for quality decision making?
- do you use sensory methods for quality determination and which methods are used?
- what is important to measure and why?
Quality decision-making was defined as: the possibility to differentiate various quality grades and being able to sell or buy fish according to these quality grades. Within this project the meaning of ‘sensory methods’ was defined in the loosest possible way. For example checking fish for blemishes was regarded as a form of sensory evaluation.
The results from the questionnaire showed that there was a large variation in the way the information on sensory quality was structured and documented in each of the individual companies throughout the European fishery production chain. Almost all companies assessed the products by its appearance and described general quality criteria, often related to freshness or other product specifications, but not in a systematic way.
Rarely there were specific methods like the EU scheme, QIM or Torry scale in place, but when they had it was relatively easy to describe grades for the products. The outcome shows further that the used sensory tests were not always well documented. In the descriptive test used for quality control of raw material mostly appearance and smell was measured. In descriptive tests used for quality evaluation of the final products the taste was included. Information obtained by the companies through sensory testing was rarely well documented and often not traceable. Only 25% of the companies assess sensory quality because it was required by their customers. Approx. 65% of the companies assessed the sensory quality as an internal own routine. Although the companies have the opinion that they deliver products that their customers are demanding this was hardly ever described in terms of sensory quality. Only little was known about the demands of the end-user/consumer. No sensory quality specification of the final product was present and there was no tracing of this specification into the fishery production chain.
