According to Allied Market Research, the global seafood market is projected to reach $155,316 million by 2023, registering a CAGR of 3.6% from 2017 to 2023.
Seafood is an excellent source of nutrition and provides numerous health benefits. A rise in awareness about these benefits is helping to drive the growth of the global seafood market, as well as other factors such as increasing disposable income, changing lifestyles and consumer diet preferences.
Fish is loved by consumers – it is unique, nutritious and well-balanced. The four quality elements of food are texture, appearance, flavour and nutrition.
Compared with the meat of livestock, tissue of fish is more soft and delicate in its chemical composition.
With the development of people's living standards and of the food processing industry, texture has attracted more and more attention.
A recently published paper describes several texture parameters, analyses various factors affecting fish tissue texture especially the protein composition of fish muscle tissue from 3 aspects – physical factors, chemical factors and post-mortem changes – and mainly reviews the effects of different processing methods such as heating, freezing, salting and smoking on texture of fish meat.
Shellfish
has a characteristically chewy texture; to create a convincing
comminuted product, manufacturers need to imitate this.
In texture analysis terms, chewiness is measured by elasticity. High elasticity produces an item with a rubbery consistency (Figure 7) whereas low elasticity creates an undesirably brittle product.
Preparation
processes can detrimentally affect the texture of imitation shell-fish
products and affect repeat purchase decisions.
During
new product development manufacturers must consider the effect of these
processes on the structure of surimi with regard to toughness.
A predominant ingredient in the Orient is fish – used both fresh and comminuted as surimi fish mince.
Made
for centuries by the Japanese and thought to date as far back as
1100AD, surimi is now spreading from Japanese to Western processed foods
and is used to form extruded, shaped or cooked simulated shell-fish
meat products such as crab, lobster, scallop or shrimp.
To
gain consumer acceptance of imitation shell-fish, the texture, flavour
and appearance of fresh shell-fish must be matched as closely as
possible. This has successfully been achieved by Japanese processors who
produce surimi as an economic alternative to fresh fillets and
imitation shell-fish which are barely distinguishable from the real
thing.
Texture is a very important parameter in the total quality of meat and meat products (i.e. whole tissue and processed meats). For the consumer’s acceptability of meat, tenderness is a crucial property. As whole tissue meat is a natural product it possesses inherent variability due to many factors. As a sample for testing this presents a common problem to assess the texture repeatably.
Processed meats have three general types: deli-styles (for example turkey, bologna), that are sliced, formed meats (meat balls, meat patties, chicken patties, chicken nuggets) and sausage-style meats which are usually tubular shaped.
An independent study published in the Journal of Food Science has recognised the superior performance of Stable Micro Systems’ Warner-Bratzler shear blade in assessing firmness and texture in salmon fillets*.
The blade, which is used to assess the cutting force, or ‘bite’ of fresh fish, was the most sensitive method tested and yielded the most consistently accurate and repeatable data. As post-mortem quality degradation in fish continues to affect revenues, these conclusions will assist manufacturers looking to implement reliable, accurate and tested quality control procedures.
Shellfish
has a characteristically chewy texture; to create a convincing
comminuted product, manufacturers need to imitate this. 
Preparation
processes can detrimentally affect the texture of imitation shell-fish
products and affect repeat purchase decisions. 
Texture is a very important parameter in the total quality of meat and meat products (i.e. whole tissue and processed meats). For the consumer’s acceptability of meat, tenderness is a crucial property. As whole tissue meat is a natural product it possesses inherent variability due to many factors. As a sample for testing this presents a common problem to assess the texture repeatably. 
