Development of Quality Index for Freshness of Skipjack Tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) during Variant Storage Temperature at PT. Aneka Tuna Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia as the one of leading tuna exporter and has a large market must face the barrier in the global trade such as the EU and USA. An investigation was carried out to develop and evaluate a quality index method (QIM) scheme for Skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) in storage temperature 0oC and -15oC ± 1oC (frozen storage) at PT. Aneka Tuna Indonesia. The quality index total (QI) based on the assessment from 3 trained QC inspector showed a linear relationship between quality index total scores and storage periods which have significant correlation in 0oC (R² = 0.932) and frozen room (R² = 0.9413). Besides that, the regression equation resulted from the linear relationship can be used to predict the remaining shelf life of tuna during storage. The final pH of Skipjack tuna revealed that 5.92 ± 0.04 and 5.78 ± 0.03 which are 0oC and frozen storage. The histamine level has shown the significant correlation to the total of QI scores. In the 0oC temperature, it was shown significant correlation (sig.value<0.05) with the linear relationship (R² = 0.9845), whereas in the frozen temperature which has shown significant correlation (sig.value<0.01) with the linear relationship (R² = 0.9126). The QI max limit on 10 has shown the safest histamine levels and good tuna quality (high and medium grade) that can be used for the canned tuna production, where the tolerable freshness should be less than 9 days of frozen storage temperature and 8 days of the 0oC storage temperature. Therefore, the QIM scheme can be implemented to evaluate and determine the freshness of Skipjack tuna at PT Aneka Tuna Indonesia before the production.