Seasonal patterns of spoilage of ice-stored cultured gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata)

Cage-cultured gilt-head sea bream (Sparus aurata) from Greek sea waters was sampled in January and in August for some chemical and microbial spoilage indicators during 15 days of ice storage. Winter fish reached higher levels of microbial populations (109 vs 107 in summer fish) at the end of the storage period. The pH showed an increase after 8 days of storage. TVBN showed a slow and uniform increase. The catabolism of adenine nucleotides showed a slow rate of inosine monophosphate decomposition and a small linear rate of hypoxanthine accumulation. The K value of summer fish was found to be initially higher than that of fish sampled in winter in the early stages of storage, but lower in the later stages when microbial spoilage occurred. These results indicate that summer fish have higher rates of autolytic activity but lower rates of microbial spoilage.