Abstract
Seabass is one of the leading aquaculture species in Europe. Sensory analysis is essential for new product development. This research focused on establishing and differentiating the opinion of consumers about seabass quality obtained with organic feeding. Fish were fed for 196 days with four treatments (a control diet with 30% fishmeal and three diets with different levels of fishmeal supplemented with organic vegetable ingredients: 25%, 30% and 35%). Experimental diets were compared with commercial samples from the retail industry that were considered as “adequate quality for fish”. Two sensory analyses were carried out, check-all-that-apply (CATA) to obtain feedback on consumers’ characterization towards a different type of fish evaluated and projective mapping (PM) to measure the similarity among a set of products and establish a comparison between results provided by both methods. According to the CATA results, white color, softness, meaty taste and juicy texture were considered relevant attributes, also showing a good relationship with an adequate cooked fish description. A penalty analysis confirmed that the previous characteristics were considered essential while fibrous was an undesirable attribute. The projective mapping showed a similar sensory configuration to the CATA, corroborating these findings that showed that commercial fish were placed in a position away from the rest of the treatments, and the organic diet with a higher level of fishmeal (35%) was the most distant from the control diet.
Highlights
Seabass (Dicentrachus labrax) is one of the leading aquaculture species in Europe, being cultured all over the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the North-Eastern Atlantic
Following the results provided by multiple factorial analysis (MFA) for CATA and projective mapping (PM), 30% effective to discriminate among organic diets (ECO) would be an adequate formulation for seabass feed since it would allow achieving a fillet more alike to the commercial product than to the control’s diet; it could be differentiated, too, from diets with other substitution amounts (%)
The sensory methods applied in this study demonstrated that assessors were capable of discriminating among diets, indicating that all diets tested were different from commercial samples
Summary
Seabass (Dicentrachus labrax) is one of the leading aquaculture species in Europe, being cultured all over the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the North-Eastern Atlantic. Fishing still accounts for more than 10% of total seabass production worldwide [1]. Europe is the largest producer and exporter of this species (239.7 million t live weight), : Turkey 99.97, Greece 44.28, Spain 17.65, Italy. 7.03 and Croatia 5.71 million t live weight [2]. The intense competition among countries for seabass commerce and the resulting pressure on market prices require characterization and differentiation based on product quality, taking into account environmental sustainability. Producers and manufacturers need to know how consumers perceive their products to remain competitive [2]
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