Biochemical composition, volatile organic compounds, sensory and consumer evaluation of Pacific cupped oysters during land-based refinement

Abstract

Oysters are the most tender and delicate of all seafoods. The stay in bed all day and night. They never work or take exercise, are stupendous drinkers, and wait for their meals to come to them."Hector Bolitho 'The Glorious Oyster ' (1960) Gempesaw, Bacon, Wessels and Manalo (1995) showed that consumers with a relatively higher educational background were more likely to buy oysters when compared to consumers with a lower educational background. Also, consumption patterns were significantly affected by the place of residence, age and seafood consumption frequency of the consumers. For instance, consumers were more likely to buy oysters when they lived relatively close to the seashore and were living in bigger cities. Furthermore, likelihood of oyster purchase increased with the age of the consumers. Purchase decision drivers such as health and taste play an important role in the buying behavior of oyster consumers.Consumers considering health as an important aspect in their purchase decision were six times more likely to buy oysters. Consumers considering taste as an important aspect in their purchase decision were 56 times more likely to buy oysters.Flavor, variety of diet, availability of fresh oysters, health, nutrition and tradition are all mentioned by consumers as reason for oyster consumption (Hanson, House, Sureshwaran, Posadas and Liu, 2002;House, Hanson and Sureshwaran, 2003).Alternatively, important reasons for not consuming oysters are high prices, food safety concerns, lack of availability of fresh oysters, allergy, lack of preparation knowledge, taste, smell and texture of the oysters (Hanson et al., 2002;House et al., 2003). Kow et al. (2008) and Mueller Loose, Peschel and Grebitus (2012) stressed the factor of convenience as a driver for purchase decisions. Australian consumers preferred, in their studies, pre-opened half-shell oysters over unopened oysters. Other important choice drivers in the study of Mueller Loose et al. (2012) were price, geographical origin of the oyster and oyster species. Kow et al. (2008) showed that Australian consumers had a Most of the sensory research regarding oysters is focused on the shelf life and storage conditions of these oysters. Aaraas et al. (2004) used a team of chefs and experienced oyster tasters in the development of attributes for sensory profiling of the European flat oyster in relation to freshness. For odor the attributes sea, seaweed, fishy, shellfish, crab, mud and mire were considered important. The appearance of the oysters was described using the attributes hydration of the gills, hydration of the mantle, color of plum and form of plum. The attributes describing texture were chewiness (1 st impression), hardness (after some mastication) and juiciness. For the description of taste the attributes sea-like, salty, pungent, sweet, rich, creamy, seaweed, bitter/bitterness and metallic aftertaste were used. In the study of Buzin, Baudon, Cardinal, Barillé and Haure (2011) odor attributes used in the freshness assessment of Pacific cupped oysters inclu...