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Abstract
Atlantic herring was commercially captured with purse seine in catches of 100–400 Mt. During crowding 0–30 min individual fish were sampled from the purse seine, killed by a percussive blow to the head and blood lactate was measured. Muscle pH and rigor index was measured over 24 h. Additionally, 100 fish sampled before and after crowding were stored in tanks, filleted, and analyzed for flesh quality (texture, gaping, blood content, colour and appearance), prior to and after freezing and thawing. Results show that the pre mortem stress associated with capture caused anaerobic muscle activity and the formation of lactic acid both in muscle and blood, elevating with crowding duration. The onset of rigor mortis accelerated with increasing crowding duration. Crowding in the purse seine did lead to lower quality scores of the fillets as seen in softer texture, increased blood content and gaping. Except for blood content, freezing and thawing amplified all measured quality parameters related to the level of stress. We conclude that stress associated with capture and duration of crowding affect the animal’s welfare and will have negative effect on the fillet quality of herring.
Highlights
Over the past decades, the market dynamics for Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) has shifted from being a major raw material source for the fish meal industry to mainly being used for human consumption
Prices of Atlantic herring is dependent on size distribution (Zimmermann and Heino, 2013), the overall pricing after retail market is a good indicator that an overall high quality of products is an important driving force (Bronnmann and Bitt mann, 2019)
During crowding herring showed increased anaerobic muscle activity and hypoxia with a significant accumulation of lactate (P < 0.0005, r = 0.81; linear regression, Fig. 2a), followed by a drop in muscle pH (P < 0.005, r = 0.72; linear regression, Fig. 2b), peaking after 30 min with 6.3 ± 1.00 mmol/L lactate, while pH variated from 7.1 ± 0.14 to 7.23 ± 0.34 after 15 and 30 min of crowding
Summary
The market dynamics for Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) has shifted from being a major raw material source for the fish meal industry to mainly being used for human consumption. In 2020, Norway exported 317.418 Mt of Atlantic herring, worth roughly € 380 million. In line with this development, the average prices on first-hand sales of Atlantic herring have increased gradually from 1998 to 2020 from 0.77 to 1.1 €/kg (SSB, 2021). An increasing proportion of the Norwegian herring catch is processed into fillets, which in recent years has comprised approximately 40%, by volume. Prices of Atlantic herring is dependent on size distribution (Zimmermann and Heino, 2013), the overall pricing after retail market is a good indicator that an overall high quality of products is an important driving force (Bronnmann and Bitt mann, 2019)
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