QUALITY CONTROL

Quality control can be defined simply as 'maintenance of quality at a level that satisfies the customer and that is economical to the producer or seller'.

To meet the highest standards of the most demanding customers all controls are intensive and stringent. To assure product integrity, the process and the ingredients used are HACCP monitored and comply with the stringent requirements of the Food and Drug Administration (in USA).

In addition, all of our producs are fully kosher, approved by the Orthodox Union.

Methods of inspecting and testing quality are of two main types, sensory or organoleptic tests, and instrumental and chemical tests. The first type employs only the human senses of sight, smell, taste and touch, whereas the second employs instruments like thermometers and chemical apparatus which are largely independent of human responses. Generally it is obvious which type should be used, and in the fish industry sensory methods are used most widely. One of the most important factors in choosing a method is the time available for testing. Thus the assessment of freshness in wet fish must often be made within an hour or two, whereas several days may be available for testing frozen fish. Sensory methods have disadvantages; for example the results can be variable, and the operator may be subject to outside influences and fatigue. There is therefore some incentive to replace sensory methods with instrumental ones; for example chemical methods of measuring freshness are available that can largely replace sensory methods, although they are generally too elaborate and expensive to be used as routine. Their main advantage is that when there is doubt or dispute about sensory measurements they can serve as reference methods.

Sensory methods are of two types, subjective and objective. With a subjective method, the inspector makes a personal assessment; for example he may say whether he likes the sample of fish or not, how much he likes or dislikes it, and whether he would buy it. This type of assessment is sometimes called hedonic, that is relating to pleasure. With an objective sensory method, the inspector attempts to assess the fish dispassionately and without prejudice by concentrating his attention on specific quality factors, for example degree of saltiness. Training and experience are necessary to enable him to do this accurately and reproducibly; he must become an expert. To reduce personal bias further, it is often advisable to have a group of experts examining the fish; the independent assessments of the members are then averaged statistically. Such a group is loosely called a taste panel. Since taste panels can be expensive to set up and run, their use is justified in only a few instances.

The number of objective tests, whether sensory or instrumental, available for the assessment of those qualities of a complex product that the ordinary consumer likes is still small; thus subjective methods, despite their disadvantages, have a place in QC.