Most of the tuna canneries are members of the National Canners 

 Association. Starting in 1951 this organization began a series of 

 annual tuna cuttings in southern California, Coded samples from 

 the pack of each cannery are collected and judged for the quality 

 of the pack. At the annual meeting members of the industry are 

 able to see how their own product compares id.th the average pack 

 in the industry. 



CAN MARKETS BE BROADENED BY PACHM} 

 OTHER TUNA PRODUCTS? 



There are three ways canned tuna can be put up to vary it from 

 the conventional tuna pack. The first of these involves altering 

 the existing tuna product in some minor way such as packing in a 

 can of another size, altering the size of the pieces in the can, or 

 altering the packing medium such as replacing the oil with brine. 

 Minor modifications such as these are treated in greater detail in 

 other sections of this report. (See Chapter I.) 



So far as modification of the packing medium is concerned there 

 seems to be no interest in substituting brine for oil ty domestic 

 producers. The entire domestic pack is put up at present, in a 'veg- 

 etable oil, usually soya oil except for a small pack of tonno. 

 Tonno is a pack prepared for certain nationality groups in which 

 the vegetable oil is replaced with olive oil (and the salt content 

 is also altered). Two other modifications of the standard pack 

 which are put up in small amounts are dietetic tuna which is put 

 up without salt and has a low oil content, and a baby food made 

 from tuna. Both of these are at present very small volume items 

 •rfiich, even if they expand considerably, will never markedly 

 increase tuna consumption. 



TvTo concerns are now adding mum) sodium glutamate (MSG) to 

 their product to improve the flavor. This tends to accentuate 

 or bring out the normal tuna flavor. The MSG is added in one 

 plant with the salt, at the other plant separately just after the 

 salt. 



343 



