HIGH technology company JenAct Limited have been working in partnership with Marine Products (Scotland) Limited to produce a system designed to increase the shelf-life of salmon fillets.
The firm explained that one of the main limiting factors is surface contamination of the fish by Listeria monocytogenes.
Although the fish processing industry has many existing techniques to minimise this, the industry is said to still be looking for a quick, economic and chemical-free decontamination solution.
Dr Jaromir Bilek, JenAct director said, “From a manufacturing perspective, the system does not slow down the output of the production line and requires relatively little operator intervention as it can be automatically loaded and unloaded and requires only 4m of production line length.
“As would be expected of food processing machinery, the JenAct UV Torpedo Conveyor is built from stainless-steel and is suitable for use in wash-down environments.
“The electronic control system monitors the performance of the unit to ensure that it continually provides 360 degrees of product disinfection. JenAct developed the new UV conveyor system based on its patented UV Torpedo system and the team conducted microbiological and shelf-life tests on the salmon fillets. The exciting news is that the germicidal UV both greatly reduced – in some cases completely – the microbiological burden and dramatically increased the shelf-life of the salmon.
“Furthermore, of critical importance is the fact that neither the appearance nor the taste of the salmon were affected at all.
“As with all new technology, the system is continually being refined and JenAct are already designing the next generation systems.”
