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Norway and Iceland are two important world fish producers. France is also an important producer of processed seafood products and one of the main European importers of fish. One major challenge of the fisheries sector is to successively guarantee freshness, quality and safety of seafood products. Indeed, the latter are very susceptible to microbial and biochemical activities. More specifically, the main cause of contamination is related to the presence of bacteria on animal skin which multiply during storage and develop during filleting and further processing.

The objective of the SAFEFISHDISH project is to improve microbiological and sensorial quality of seafood products to ensure food safety from havest to consumer. This European collaborative project gathers industrials from the fisheries sector and focus on two highly commercialized species in Europe: farmed salmon and cod. Innovative technologies based on the use of bioprotective agents such as bioprotective microbial cultures, chitosan, overchilling and conditioning under modified atmosphere will be evaluated. The opportunity to set preservative treatments at the beginning of the food process, targeting notably animal skin and flesh, will be explored. The bacterial ecosystem and metabolomic profiles will be characterized through the use of high throughput technologies such as next generation sequencing methods (NGS) and various chromatographic methods. This project should enable control of quality and safety of seafood products and contribute to nutritional quality and health of consumers while participating in productivity and competitiveness of the European fisheries sector.

Keywords: seafood - microbiota - biopreservation - food safety - microbial stability - process