Microbial Evaluation of Selected Post Harvest Processing Techniques for Quality Fish Product at Bahir Dar Town, Ethiopia

Fish is a highly nutritious food for providing high quality protein and income to many people in the developing world. In Africa, 5% of the population (35 million people) depends on the fisheries sector for their livelihood. However, fish is one of the mostperishable of all the foods because it is a suitable medium for growth of microorganisms after death. In the tropics at ambient temperature fish will spoil within 12-20 hrs depending on species and method of capture.

Lake Tana, the largest lake in Ethiopia, creates job opportunity for 3,514 fishers. Most communities engaged in fisheries of L. Tana have been experiencing significant loss. Fish postharvest loss in Lake Tana is more than 30%, excluding low value fish parts. 

Losses occur as a result of flaws in the handling, storage, distribution, processing and marketing techniques. Traditional fish processing and preservation method is the only method used to dry fish in the study area where the price of the such fish is very low due to quality problems affecting the fishers’ livelihood and nutrient loss for the consumers. Hence, it is important to identify appropriate improved fish processing methods to reduce postharvest fish loss, increase quality, and market value and their income. This could be by upgrading the traditional fish processing technology and adoption of solar dryer. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of fish processed by solar tent, open air rack and smoking methods.(Read more)