Exercise Effects on Fish Quality and Implications for Consumer Preferences

The consumer’s perception of appearance, taste, texture and odours of fish are fundamental aspects of fish quality. Research that specifically considers the impact of swim exercise on these quality attributes is sparse and this chapter thus discusses additionally how quality may change indirectly through exercise-inducible parameters. The literature altogether suggests that exercise proves beneficial to some exogenous characteristics like fin bites and healthy skin while several endogenous key components, such as lipid and protein content in the body, do not change significantly. This also holds for the fatty acid profile in general and the specific content of healthy omega-3 fatty acids. On the contrary, there is a noteworthy impact on numerous swim muscle parameters that leads to increases in fillet hardness. Improvements in specific quality characteristics like appearance and fillet texture characteristics have potential to be integrated in product labelling of exercised fish and this may stimulate consumer interest. In order to develop the area further future research should aim at clarifying how changeable quality parameters specifically are regulated by exercise. This would be fruitful in future advising of fish farmers on how to apply swim exercise for improving end-product quality.