"fill-in" weight of the canned food material. Detennination of 

 drained weight for mar;y canned food products, for example, canned 

 peas, is a simple and fairly accurate procedure. But, in the case 

 of canned tuna, when the ordinary drained weight is determined the 

 oil does not drain completely from the meat. The ordinary drained 

 weight procedure for canned tuna would then obviously give high 

 values which may not be an indication of the "fill-in" weight of 

 tuna meato The new tuna standards, therefore, must adopt some 

 other criteria for estimating "fill-in'» weight. Under consideration 

 is a method of measuring the solid contents of a can of tuna based 

 upon "press weight" determinations. By this method the contents of 

 a can would be subjected to a stipulated pressure in a specially 

 designed press, the expressed liquid separated, and the amount of 

 press cake (solids) determined. The amount of the solid portion 

 of the canned product would serve as an indication of the "fill-in" 

 weight. Stipulated "press weight requirements" would have to be 

 met by each type of pack, such as solid, chunk, flake, and packed 

 with oil or brine. 



In general most tuna packers are convinced that the new Federal 

 specifications will be, in the long run, a good thing for the 

 industry. They realize that when the standards are adopted there 

 will be some immediate effects which may seem harmful at the time. 

 These are concerned mainly vrith the requirements on fill of con- 

 tainer which wiU. necessitate increasing the amount of fish in the 

 standard tuna can. 



Industry Voluntary Quality Control 



In addition to enforced regulations carried out by State and 

 Federal agencies, the industry carries out its own inspection and 

 maintains its own sanitation quality control program at various 

 levels. Mary of the canneries have technologists and a few have 

 well-equipped laboratories. These check on yields obtained in the 

 processing of fish and look after sanitation in the plants. They 

 also try to improve on processing methods and develop new products 

 and byproducts. Some of the smaller canneries which have no 

 laboratories or technologists of their own make use of one of the 

 several commercial testing laboratories which operate- in southern 

 California. These laboratories will station a worker in a plant 

 to check on weights of product and to collect and carry out 

 cuttings of the product to be certain it is up to required standards. 



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