68 DESCRIPTION OF IMPORTANT FISHERIES AND THEIR PRODUCTS 



dumped from the baskets directly onto a conveyor and carried to a weigh- 

 ing station where they are weighed in 500-pound lots. In other cases, the 

 conveyor deposits them in a dump truck for transport to a more distant 

 processing plant. 



Processing. In the plant the whiting may be processed immediately 

 or held for periods up to 18 hours in storage pens made of wood, steel, 

 or concrete block. 



In contrast to haddock more than 99 per cent of the whiting catch 

 is sold frozen ^^, and the great majority of the frozen product is marketed 

 in the headed and gutted (H&G) form. 



Heading and Gutting. For the production of H&G whiting, the fish 

 are conveyed by belt or sluice to a heading machine where workers place 

 the fish in a V-slotted belt. The belt carries the fish to a circular knife 

 which removes the heads. The headed fish then pass through a rotary 

 scaler where the scales and much of the viscera are removed. From the 

 scaler, the fish go to an inspection table where they are checked for 

 complete removal of the viscera. 



Filleting. The large fish are culled out at the heading machine belt 

 and conveyed or carried in boxes to the filleting line. The fillets are cut, 

 brined, and packaged as described for haddock. 



Packing H&G Whiting. Typically H&G whiting are packed in IJ^^, 

 5, and 10-pound containers. Window-style cartons are often used for the 

 IJ^-pound packs while the larger sizes are usually packed in two-piece 

 telescoping cartons. 



Each packer fills and weighs the 13>'^-pound size packs as in packing 

 fillets. The fish are packed alternately thick end to thin end and con- 

 siderable choosing and rejecting of individual fish may be required before 

 the desired weight is reached. For the larger sizes, the fish may be pre- 

 weighed and conveyed to the packers (as is done with the fillets) or 

 'Volume packing" may be used where each packer fills the box to approxi- 

 mately the correct weight with final adjustment to exact weight being 

 made by one or two checkers at the end of the packing line. 



Few processors of whiting have their own freezers so the filled cartons 

 are placed in trays or racks for trucking to a commercial freezer and cold 

 storage warehouse. 



Quality Considerations. Aboard the larger vessels in the whiting fishery 

 no shelving is used in the fish pens. The piles of whiting exceed 10 feet 

 in height and the pressure on the bottom layer of fish is well over 850 

 pounds per square foot. In addition, ice is applied sparingly as the 

 fish are stowed in the pens, resulting in serious loss of quality, particu- 

 larly during the warm months of the year when whiting landings are 

 greatest. 



