An assessment of red fillet prevalence in the catfish industry

Effects of acute environmental and handling exposure on physiology and fillet quality of market‐sized Channel Catfish

“…Fillets from fish subjected to the extreme treatment were less yellow than fish subjected to the moderate treatment, and fish in the typical treatment had fillets with similar yellowness to fish in the extreme and moderate treatments. While redness did not differ between treatments, the three red fillets found had blotches and redness values (CIE a*: 8.5 ± 3.4) similar to those observed by processors (CIE a*: 11.1 ± 0.5; Allred et al, ).…”

“…Acute exposure to poor water quality had minimal impact on the proximate analysis of catfish fillets based on only small or no differences in fat, moisture and protein among treatments. Interestingly, both baseline and acutely exposed fish sampled in the current experiment had lower fat reserves than typically seen in market‐size Channel Catfish (Allred et al, ; Lovell & Li, ). This may be compensation for higher moisture and protein percentages as moisture and protein levels for baseline and acute exposure fish in all treatments were numerically higher than values previously measured from market‐sized Channel Catfish (Allred et al, ; Lovell & Li, ).…”

“…However, exposure to extreme poor water quality conditions resulted in only one red fillet, while two red fillets occurred in the treatment more typical of normal pond conditions (typical treatment). Notably, prior research has not produced similar red fillets as those observed by catfish processors (Allred et al, ) through simulated poor water quality during hauling procedures (Bosworth et al, ) nor chronic exposure to poor water quality followed by harvest procedures (Ciaramella, Kim, et al, ). When considering these experiments along with the results of this study, red fillets are not directly caused by poor water quality and handling stress.…”

“…The presence of red coloration in catfish fillets can range from a solitary spot to the whole fillet and can be identified as either punctured or red fillets. Punctured fillets are defined by a red spot that is often accompanied by a visible puncture, and red fillets are characterized by large and diffuse red patches (Allred et al, ). Punctured fillets are presumably a result of puncture from pectoral fins of adjacent catfish in response to high stress levels when kept at high densities (Fine et al, ; Sismour, Nellis, Newton, Mays, & Fine, ) and represent 36% of weighed‐back fillets (Allred et al, ).…”

“…Punctured fillets are defined by a red spot that is often accompanied by a visible puncture, and red fillets are characterized by large and diffuse red patches (Allred et al, ). Punctured fillets are presumably a result of puncture from pectoral fins of adjacent catfish in response to high stress levels when kept at high densities (Fine et al, ; Sismour, Nellis, Newton, Mays, & Fine, ) and represent 36% of weighed‐back fillets (Allred et al, ). In contrast, red fillets represent 49% of all weigh backs (Allred et al, ) and have no previously determined cause but are hypothesized to be a sign of internal haemorrhaging (Desai et al, ).…”