Storage Stability of Smoked Mackerel Fish ( Scomboromorus scombus ) as Affected by Selected Packaging Materials

Abstract

In this study, Smoked mackerel fish ( Scomboromorus scombus ) was stored under ambient conditions (30±2°C) in selected local packaging materials namely: Aluminium foil (AF), High density polyethylene (HDP), Low density polyethylene (LDP) and Cartons (CT) were determined. Results obtained showed that proximate composition of the samples were significantly affected (P≤0.05) by the packaging materials at the 9 th week of storage. The protein content of sample AF (45.28) was higher followed by sample CT (47.02), then sample HDP (45.65) while sample LDP (45.35) was lowest. Moisture content did not follow the same trend as protein. The carbohydrate and ash contents of sample CT were generally higher than the other samples. There was gradual decrease in with storage time. On the other hand, Peroxide values increased significantly with storage time, and sample AF showed the lowest increase. Sample AF had lower total plate count that ranged from 1.6 × 10 3 to 1.1× 10 4 cfu/g, while sample LDP had the highest values (1.6 × 10 3 to 1.6× 10 5 cfu/g) the yeast and mould counts showed low visible growth ( th week of storage, and the highest growth was seen in sample LDP. Results of the sensory analysis showed that smoked mackerel packaged and stored in aluminium foil had highest degree of general acceptability. This study recommends aluminium foil as the best packaging material for smoked mackerel followed by High and Low density Polyethylene while carton which is generally most used in Nigeria gave the least performance.