Mapping dark spots in salmon fillets

In order to achieve this, one subsidiary objective is to firstly develop a registration method that is simple, appropriate and as automated as possible, which will facilitate both recruitment of companies and registration of data of high quality, volume and variation.

Background

Dark spots in salmon fillets are a major and cost-intensive quality issue for the Norwegian fish farming industry, with around one in seven fish having some form of dark discolouration of the fillet.

Mapping of quality deviations will be an important part of the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund’s work to develop knowledge and solutions to ensure salmon of predictable quality.  

The project has the potential to contribute to reduced food waste and increased profitability and sustainability by reducing the incidence of dark spots in salmon fillets. Nofima aims to contribute to sustainable and profitable food production and, as such, the project is suitably anchored in the Nofima strategy.

Objectives

The main objective is to map the incidence of dark spots in salmon fillets originating from the Norwegian salmon farming industry. In addition to general mapping, the project applied for will also have a subsidiary objective of mapping the incidence in relation to where (geography) and how (technology) salmon is produced.

This is what we will do

In order to achieve proper national mapping over time, the project relies on a simple and effective registration method to lower the threshold for companies to consent to participate, while also ensuring high quality records. 

An appropriate registration methodology will thus first be developed first and then put into use by the industry. The registered data will subsequently become part of the national mapping of dark spots in salmon fillets.