The following two articles were penned by a lettered son of the soil Dr. Robert Lucas, Ph.D, Food Biotechnologist a few years ago and are relevant today. The subject matter is about food safety as it pertains to fish.
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Workers at the fish market should not wear their working apparel in public places. Take a walk by the fish market and you can see them walking the streets wearing the boots that they work in on the processing floor. This is a bad manufacturing practice.
More than twenty-years ago, I suggested in articles that fish waste be ensilaged using Lactic-acid bacteria starter cultures to ferment the waste by dropping the pH to about 4.3. At such low pH levels spoilage microbes are inhibited from growing and elaborating toxins. I did my PH.D in lactic acid fermenting microbes so I knew what I was talking about, since I worked on fermented sausages.
When I was in the US at UMASS, the Professor I was associated with was using lactic-acid bacteria to convert fish waste into lobster bait ( lobsters are big business in the US) by the same fermentation technique. So I was surprised when the minister started keeping a lot of noise about fish silage and aid from Argentina: he got on as though it was the holy grail and as if it was something novel.
A couple of years ago (5-6) there was a call for applicants to apply to a comprehensive HACCP on all food processing plants as well as those engaged in the small-scale food industry. I applied and was told by Dr, Beverly Wood (who has no qualifications in food) that I didn’t supply enough information. I didn’t get job and neither did another applicant with a Masters in food. It went to a civil engineer and subsequent events were to prove that the civil engineer did not have a clue about what he was doing. Such are the things that happen in this country. The fish are now held on ice,but the entire building ought to be enclosed.
Dr. Robert Lucas, Ph.D, Food Biotechnologist
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