here - SafeTrackFood

Development of a novel Industrial Fish Drying and Maturing Process to secure Seafood Safety, Traceability
and Quality
D8.5 – Progress report
The seven partners in SafeTrackFood project consortium are aiming
towards reducing drying and maturing times of stockfish and improving
safety, quality and traceability in stockfish production. With the 1. 5 years
so far in the project, the prototype drying unit has been developed, initial
trials have been carried out and first results of the new and innovative
stockfish production are on the table. The remaining 11 months will be
used for further trials, process optimisation and validation.
Research and development. During the first 9 months of the project, maturing and drying factors of
stockfish were investigated and samples of outdoor dried stockfish were analyzed regularly for water
content, bacteria, volatile compounds and gas-sensor measurements. Based on research, SafeTrackFood
prototype drying unit has been further developed with a number of significant hardware and software
modifications and improvements, so that it would meet the needs for the stockfish maturation and drying
processes. Within 18 months, new range of sensors, including gas, optical and weight sensors, and
humidification system have been integrated into the prototype. The process control system enables to run
all the developed control protocols of the prototype drying unit and to have connectivity possibilities to the
internet and other network. To enhance seafood quality, safety and traceability, the prototype SCADA
(supervisory control and data acquisition) system has been developed and integrated with drying unit –
monitoring, controlling and logging stockfish production process.
Early 2014, first trials with the prototype drying unit were performed with seasonal headed and gutted
fresh Lofoten cod with a gross weight of 103 kg used as a raw material. The final stockfish product was
further quality assessed and compared to traditional outdoor dried stockfish. Based on the results, the first
indoor dried stockfish fulfilled the chemical, microbiological and
sensory quality of final stockfish product to comply with the
traditional outdoor dried stockfish product. In the consortium
meeting in Norway, May 2014, project partners assessed and
compared dish made of outdoor dried stockfish with
SafeTrackFood process controlled stockfish.
Left: outdoor dried stockfish. Right: indoor dried stockfish
Consortium management. Four consortium meetings have been held to date: kick-off meeting in Norway,
December 2012; M3 meeting in Estonia, February 2013, M10 meeting in Italy, September 2013 and M18
meeting in Norway, May 2014. Partners keep regular communication and progress updates via e-mails.
Project dissemination. Various dissemination materials, such as project posters, product sheets, pop-up
banners, leaflets, case studies, have been produced and shared on project website www.safetrackfood.eu
as well as project group on LinkedIn. SME partners have participated in multiple seafood exposition and
trade events, such as Seafood Expo Global/Seafood Processing Global in Brussels and Seafood Exhibition
in Boston, where the innovation of SafeTrackFood project has been introduced to different stakeholders in
the seafood processing sector.
SME Partners
Athena Seafoods AS (Norway)
Afos LTD (UK)
Environmental Monitoring Systems (Netherlands)
Il Ceppo SRL (Italy)
PUBLIC
D8.5
RTD partners
Eesti Innovatsiooni Instituut (Estonia)
FhG IPM (Germany)
Nofima AS (Norway)
The research in this project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme
managed by REA -Research Executive Agency (FP7/2007-2012) under grant agreement No: 304775.

Download Report