At Frontline Food Consultants and Engineers, we provide complete food consulting and food packaging solutions for your very own premium quality canned fish products. These canned fish products respond to the growing customer appetite for easy-to-prepare and healthy Seafood. Preserving fish is a delicate process that should maintain fish quality by preserving its taste, texture, and nutritional value while using long-lasting canned fish. We support the entire process from the procurement of good quality fish to perfecting the canning process, the food processing machinery used, and the plant layout.  

Our New Product Development assistance with canned fish products enhances your products’ novelty based on innovative flavors, freshness, and quality or simply recaptures tried-and-true classics. Especially, in Process Optimization we ensure that every facet of fish processing, from cleaning and preparing the fish to sealing and sterilizing the cans, is exactly as it should be. Our Technological Support is an embedding of high-level sealing and sterilization technological means into your production process, e.g., retort systems we consider critical for the safety and quality of canned fish.

Through our Regulatory Compliance & Documentation services, you can be assured that your products are compliant with all the laid down legal jurisdictions in terms of shelf stability, safety standards, and labeling. Further, we offer Audits & Training to ensure that your production facilities are effective and meet all the required industry standards. 

What is Canned Fish?

Canned fish is a popular product, which means fish is sealed in a tin and can be immersed in oil, brine or sundry sauces and these products are rich in nutrients. Many important stages must be followed when canning fish, to ensure that the final flavor is retained and to ensure that it is safe for eating long term. Examples are tuna, sardines, salmon and mackerel all of which must undergo special processing that will retain the features that consumers value most.

For the processing and canning of fish requires a proper strategy in establishing the building as well as installation of the right tools. This must have canning machines that automatically fill, seal and sterilize the cans, the fish inside must be in the right conservation. Pretreatment processes involve the use of high-pressure retort systems for sterilization that eliminate bacteria and pathogens hence improving on the product’s quality. This method also requires a high degree of control in preparation before actual scanning such as cooking and seasoning in order to satisfy consumers’ palate.

Types of Canned Fish

Canned fish products come in a variety of types and preparations, suitable for a range of dietary preferences and culinary applications:

Tuna:

  • Profile: Mild flavor, firm texture.
  • Varieties: Thins slices, opaque, milky white, white tunny.
  • Applications: This is especially useful for sandwich, salads, casserole and even pasta dishes.

Salmon:

  • Profile: Rich flavor, soft texture.
  • Varieties: Pink, red (sockeye).
  • Applications: It is applied to salads, patties, and spreads and as a base ingredient in a dish.

Sardines:

  • Profile: Generally it has a taste that is very hard to miss, The bones of this fowl become soft and can be taken while eating.
  • Varieties: In oil, tomato sauce, mustard or water, or in other words in any fluid medium.
  • Applications: Excellent as a snack, a spread, in salads or on toast.

Mackerel:

  • Profile: Rich, oily flavor.
  • Varieties: In oil, tomato sauce, brine.
  • Applications: Ideal as toppings for salad, for sandwiches and as sauce for pasta.

Anchovies:

  • Profile: Strong, salty flavor.
  • Varieties: Whole, fillets, in oil.
  • Applications: Primarily used in oils and dressings and sauces and in cheese and pizza and as a spice.

Production of Canned Fish

The process of canning fish is carefully planned to meet market requirements in regard to quality, safety, and nutrients of the canned fish product.

Sourcing and Selection

  • Objective: Buy good quality fish which should also be environmentally friendly.
  • Process: Seafood used in the manufacture of its products is obtained from accredited fishery that practices sustainable fishing. The fish used are chosen depending on size, quality, and freshness of the fish that is being used.

Preparation and Cleaning

  • Objective: Prepare fish for canning.
  • Process: Fish are washed, stripped and scaled or, skinned and boned. Sometimes the fish stays whole; this is the case of sardines for example Photography courtesy of T.I.L.F. This step also includes deboning and scaling, depending on the product type of the organization.

Cooking and Processing

  • Objective: Cook and preserve the fish.
  • Process: Preparations of the fish involve boiling, steaming, or even grilling, although most of the time frying is used. They are then packed into cans with different packing media as water, oil or sauces. To avoid any contamination the cans are tightly sealed.
  • Sterilization and Pasteurization or thermal neutralization of microorganisms or their products.
  • Objective: Make it safe and more durable before it is stored.
  • Process: Cans are cooked (sterilized or pasteurized) to eliminate every undesirable microorganism for the safety and shelf stability of the product to be contained. It also increases the shelf life of the fish by putting it in a can that the public may not see.

Quality Control and Testing

  • Objective: Keep food quality and safety.
  • Process: Every batch is tested through sensory analysis testing, microbial testing as well as can inspection, on the same batch of cans. The above measures help to guarantee the safety and quality of the final product as it is known to meet all the necessary measures.

Packaging and Labeling

  • Objective: Protect and inform consumers.
  • Process: There is certain information on the cans: the kind of fish, ingredients, calories, shelf life, and the country where produced. Flambeau group packaging is cohesive and consumer-friendly as it must be to create a greater niche for the products.
  • Development of Packaging Material for Canned Fish
  • Canned fish challenged by packaging material is important in retaining the quality and safety of the food product in addition to attractiveness to the consumers.

Tin and Aluminum Cans

  • Objective: Give a rugged and long-term material packaging solution.
  • Materials: Loose cans are commonly made from tin-plate steel or aluminum that provide good light, air as well as contamination resistance.
  • Benefits: These are prospective structural panels that are smart, light, and can be recycled. They also afford excellent protection to prevent spoilt of the fish and also to retain it natural flavor and enhanced nutrient value.

Easy-Open Lids and Pull Tabs

  • Objective: Enhance consumer convenience.
  • Materials: Cans of the present day can bear convenient open ends or pull rings so that they may be opened without having recourse to instruments.
  • Benefits: These features enhance the experience to enable the consumers to utilize the product without the help of a can opener.

Labeling and Branding

  • Objective: Offer details and capture the consumers’ attention.
  • Materials and Design Considerations: To be able to effectively organize, they are made from materials that cannot easily wear out and are resistant to water and abrasion. Advertising concerns flashy colors and attractive graphics such as food quality, sustainability marks, no preservatives added or high omega-3 among others.