Development of a Catch-damage-index to assess the quality of cod at landing

Summary

Quality and quality management are of increasing concern and importance in all parts of the fishery chain. Fishing gears and handling onboard the vessel have multiple impacts on fish quality, and damages caused during these operations may affect the product quality considerably, resulting in downgrading of the end products. The European fish sector consider measurement of quality defects and other quality factors as important, but methods for systematic evaluation of quality defects caused during catching operations have not been published to any extent. In this work cod caught by different fishing gears commonly used in the Norwegian coastal fisheries were examined for catch-related damages at landing. Other species like saithe and haddock may suffer the same damages, but due to being the economically most important specie in Norway, cod is chosen as model. The severities of the damages are described, and the influence of the damages on the quality of cod products is considered. Based on this, a Catch-damage-index (CDI) scheme is elaborated.