AbstractsBiology & Animal Science

The objectives of this thesis were to develop formulations and processing specifications for two types of cooked meat patties made with novel mixtures of squid and beef, and to design and verify a safe thermal processing regime that could be achieved under the available manufacturing conditions. Locally sourced Arrow Squid (Nototodarus sloanii) was trialled for process suitability in patty mixtures. Lower cost squid fins were unsuitable due to presence of skin pigments causing pink discoloration and the presence of hard textured fragments of squid pen material. Second grade frozen skinned squid tubes with uniform white colour and absence of pen were selected and used in formulations. Two types of cooked squid and beef patty products were developed: Squid and Beef Nuggets were produced by mixing together ground beef and ground squid tubes with other ingredients and forming into slightly oval shaped pieces (nuggets). Product dimensions were approximately 55mm x 40mm x 15mm thick and 24g per piece. The formulation was composed of ground squid tubes (39.0%), ground beef (23.8%) and a mixture of other non-meat ingredients (37.2%). Squid and Beef Bites were produced by co-extruding an outer casing mixture of ground squid tubes and other ingredients with an inner filling of ground beef patty mixture. The Bites were co-extruded on a Rheon forming machine and formed into bite sized pieces. Product dimensions were approximately 60mm x 60mm x 23mm thick and 60g per piece. The formulation was composed of ground squid tubes (44.9%), ground beef (21.2%) and other non-meat ingredients (33.9%). Both Nuggets and Bites were cooked on an electrically heated continuous contact belt grill cooker. Cooking was followed immediately by cooling and individually quick freezing the Nuggets or Bites in a blast spiral freezer. Products were packed as free flow pieces in polyethylene lined cardboard boxes and stored frozen below -18 ºC. A consumer acceptance study was conducted with 85 consumers. The squid and beef Nuggets and Bites were evaluated after reheating for overall liking, appearance, smell, texture and taste. A 90mm anchored line scale (where 1 = dislike extremely and 9 = like extremely) was used to rate the products. The mean overall liking scores for Bites and Nuggets were 6.63±SD2.48 and 5.9±SD2.02 respectively. A Student t-test determined there was a significant difference at the 95% confidence level for overall liking. Similar ratings were found for other attributes in the test, with appearance scoring higher for the Bites than for the Nuggets. The results indicated a ‘like slightly’ response. Further analysis of the distribution frequency of the scores revealed 69.2% of respondents rated Bites with scores of 6 or higher on the scale, while 50.6% rated Nuggets with scores of 6 or higher. This was considered a reasonable level of liking for the novel products with the Bites being slightly more preferred than Nuggets. Nutritionally, the squid and beef formulations had a low fat content of 4 - 6%, protein content of…