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CONSUMER SURVEY OF POND RAISED CATFISH TO
ESTABLISH A STANDARD LEVEL OF FLAVOR ACCEPTABILITY.
L.S. Andrews and R.M. G-rodner
Department of Food Science
Louisiana Agricultural Center
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Catfish off-flavors have frequently prevented the transfer of live caffish from the farm to the
prmssor. Traditionally, the acceptability of fish from the farmer is based on the opinion of “taste
testers” trained to recognize the variety of off-flavor bouquets that may be present in amounts from
trace or threshold to very strong. The sensitivity of the “taste testers” palates increase with
experience and are presumed to be more sensitive than that of the average consumer. As much as
90% of fish taste tested by some processors has been rejected due to off-flavor detection. With this
high rejection rate based on off-flavor, processors have not been operating at peak production and
consequently have lost man hours and money. To address this concern, it was the objective of this
such to determine whether trained caffish “taste testers” have been overly sensitive to off-flavors,
rejecting catfish when the fish flavor would readily have been very acceptable to the average
consumer.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Catfish consumers (persons who consume catfish at least once/month) were recruited from
the Louisiana State university community of faculty, staff(including food service managers), and
s;tudents and personnel from a local nuclear power plant(engineers, managers, trainers, secretarial
sMf). The total consumer panel, consisted of 56 persons, with each person evaluating duplicate
samples of catfish provided by Cargill.
Catih samples were provided by a local catfish processor and included fish containing no
off-flavor(O) ta varying amounts of off-flavor graded from threshold @-lowest) to one(l), two(2)
and three(3-highest) as determined by the “taste testers” at the processing plant. Fish fillet samples
were baked from a frozen state at 325°F in pyrex dishes with lids for approximately 20-25 minutes
until they lost opacity and were determined to be completely cooked but not over cooked. Samples
wete assigned random munbers and cut into approximately 30 g portions and placed in 5 oz plastic
souffle cups with lids for presentation to panel members. Duplicate samples were assigned different
mmibers before presentation to the panel.