HANDLING AND TRANSPORTING TO THE CANNERY 

 Part A 



by 

 Clarence J. Carlson 1/ 



For many years the handling and preservation of tuna at sea has been recognized 

 as a problem by all segments of the tuna industry. Through variations in handling, the 

 quality of domestic tuna landed has not been always up to its highest potential. When 

 the quality of the fish is slightly below the average, it must be packed as a lower grade 

 or other than a name-brand product and such products command lower prices than the top- 

 grade name brands. For the fisherman to receive the maximum return on each load of fish 

 landed, the fish must be suitable for processing into a top-grade product. We plan to 

 discuss briefly problem areas in the handling and transporting of domestic tuna to the 

 cannery which can affect the quality of the tuna landed. 



About 195h-55 the tuna industry recog- 

 nized a need for improvement in the quality 

 of domestic frozen tuna landed. Deciding 

 that something must be done, they made plans 

 to inaugurate an educational program. The 

 skippers reported to the canners concerning 

 the catching and preserving of each load of 

 tuna and, in turn, the canner evaluated the 

 quality of the load and reported this in- 

 formation to the fishing vessels skippers. 



To supplement the program started by 

 the industry, the United States Fish and 

 Wildlife Service, in 1955, negotiated a 

 one year Saltonstall-Kennedy contract with 

 California Department of Fish and Game to 

 carry out research on the handling of tuna. 

 The technological work directed by 

 Dr. Lionel Farber was conducted under sub- 

 contract by the Hooper Foundation of the 

 University of California. On the expiration 

 of the contract in 1956, a second contract 

 was negotiated with the Philip R. Park 

 Research Foundation in San Pedro to continue 

 the studies. This contract is still active 

 under the direction of Dr. Sven Lassen who 

 will review the work of his group following 

 my discussion. 



The emphasis of the contract research 



1/ Chief, Technological Station, Bureau of 

 Commercial Fisheries, Terminal Island, 

 California. 



has been on the bait boat fishery because, 

 at the time, this fishery accounted for a 

 large majority of the tuna landed. Since 

 the amount of funds available was limited 

 it was decided that the most good could be 

 accomplished by working on bait-boat fish. 



In the previous discussion, Mr. Howard 

 pointed out the complex problem of harvest- 

 ing tuna from the sea. While this is 

 undoubtedly the most important problem that 

 the fisherman faces, it certainly is not 

 his only problem. After capturing the 

 fish, he must handle and preserve his 

 catch in such a manner that the fish can 

 be delivered to shoreside installations in 

 the best possible condition. Due to many 

 factors, the quality of fish delivered to 

 the cannery sometimes is not considered 

 as being suitable for canning and, as a 

 result, part of the delivered catch is 

 rejected - a problem common to all seg- 

 ments of the fishing fleet. In turn, each 

 segment of the fleet has its own special 

 problems in regard to quality of fish 

 landed. Through discussions and observa- 

 tions we have learned that, in general, 

 the reasons for change in quality of fish 

 aboard the brine freezing vessel can be 

 attributed to four important general fac- 

 tors. These factors include physical 

 damage, bacterial and auto lytic spoilage, 

 oxidative deterioration, and salt 

 penetration . 



60 



