Quality Retention of Fresh Tuna Stored Using Supercooling Technology

The present study was focused on the investigation of physiochemical changes in tuna subjected to a novel supercooling preservation, which was assisted using a combination of pulsed electric fields (PEF) and oscillating magnetic fields (OMF). Fresh tuna fillets were stored without freezing at -3.2 °C for 8 days. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) parameter Py indicated that there was a significant difference between the frozen-thawed samples (36.3%) and fresh (46.6%) and supercooled (45.9%) samples, indicating that cell damage from ice crystal growth did not occur in the supercooled tuna sample. The microstructure observation and drip loss measurement further confirmed that the ice crystal damage was present in frozen tuna, whereas no cellular damage was found in the supercooled samples. The EIS proved its ability to distinguish between tuna samples that were frozen or chilled (i.e., refrigerated and supercooled) during storage; however, it was less sensitive in detecting the extent of spoilage. Instead, the K-value was used to evaluate tuna freshness, and the measured K-values of the refrigerated, supercooled, and frozen tuna samples after 8 days of storage were 74.3%, 26.4%, and 19.9%, respectively, suggesting that the supercooling treatment significantly preserved the tuna fillets fresh with the improved shelf-life when compared to conventional refrigeration.