Mussels. Improving quality Through Improved Storage, Handling & Temperature Practices

Summary

Both cultivated and wild mussels are a live product and must be treated as such if they are to reach the market place in good, edible and safe condition. In other words they must satisfy and not put the customer at risk. If practices can be improved there is considerable potential for increasing the harvesting of mussels from UK waters such as The Wash. The likelihood of successful growth in the industry would be increased by guidelines or a quality code for the production of a quality product. The objective of this project is to enable recommendations for improved handling practices to be made to the industry by investigating the effects of different handling procedure such as dropping, purification, de-bearding, packing methods, storage times and temperatures, on mussel shell damage, storage life, and organoleptic quality. The poor handling practices to which mussels are subjected in the UK and the lack of appreciation of how spoilage takes place is preventing the UK of taking full advantage of this rich and relatively abundant resource. This report has been produced from a scanned original and may therefore contain some formatting and other inaccuracies. In cases where this affects the technical content, a paper copy of the original report can still be obtained from Seafish.

Author

• J.T. MacMillan

Publication Reference No.

SR352

Publication date

01 September 1988