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The purpose of this fact sheet is to cover the key points of fish freshness quality with the aim of raising standards and increasing the overall consumption of fish.

Seafood is highly perishable, this means that unless there has been an intervention which changes the physical nature of the product, such as freezing, cooking, drying, smoking or canning, fresh seafood products will continually deteriorate in quality over time. Visual and physical changes effect the consumer’s perception of the product to the eventual point where it would be considered unappealing or even inedible. This briefing note is aimed at businesses that catch, process, buy, sell or trade fresh seafood products; it seeks to improve the understanding of those factors that cause the natural deterioration of seafood products due to spoilage, and to ensure that businesses are able to mitigate and remediate those changes as far as possible to ensure that the maximum storage lives for their products are achieved.