Freeze drying of fishery products: Part V - Storage characteristics of ready-to-serve freeze dried foods

Behaviour of freeze dried ready-to-serve fish based food preparations during prolonged storage at room temp has been studied and reported in this paper. Storage life of such products under the conditions employed in this study can be reckoned in years at our ambient temps.

Quality of certain ready-to-eat fish products of the domestic trade

Quality of 181 samples of ready-to-eat fish products comprising fried fish, fish curry and fish/prawn pickles collected from Cochin and Calicut were studied. Salmonella was absent in all the samples. V. cholerae was tested in the samples collected at Cochin and was absent in all the cases. Coliforms, E. coli, faecal streptococci and coagulase-positive staphylococci were present in some of the samples studied. The study indicated the necessity to improve the sanitary and hygienic conditions of the hotels engaged in the preparation of these products. The study further indicated that fried fish and fish curry shall not be served after 6 hours of their preparation. Added care is to be exercised in the selection of shrimps and fish for the preparation of pickles.