[Safely distribute delicious fish! ] Kill Anisakis with rapid freezing technology!

Due to improvements in refrigeration technology, raw fish is now distributed throughout the country, but the damage caused by Anisakis is also increasing year by year. In Japan, the culture of eating raw fish, such as sushi and sashimi, is deeply rooted, so the damage caused is much higher than in other countries.

Although Anisakis is often broadcast on TV programs, it is a very troublesome enemy for those who handle marine products and fishermen's cooperatives. You may be thinking about how to protect fish from Anisakis and distribute them safely.

In this article, we will tell you that installing rapid freezer is extremely effective in protecting fish from Anisakis.

​Anisakis can be killed by rapid freezing.
In addition, by freezing fish using advanced technology, we can maintain maximum freshness of fish, making it possible to distribute fresh fish throughout the country and increase sales volume.

There are many other benefits as well, which we will introduce in detail below.

About Anisakis

Ecology of Anisakis

Anisakis is a parasite that infects marine animals, including horse mackerel, mackerel, salmon, cod, and squid, which are commonly eaten by Japanese people.
It is visible to the naked eye, measuring between 1 cm and 3 cm, and its body color is whitish.

Details and current status of damage caused by Anisakis

When the fish is alive, Anisakis infects the internal organs, but when the fish dies, it migrates from the internal organs to the muscles. Therefore, it is best to remove the internal organs while they are fresh, but if the fish has been dead for several days, Anisakis will be infesting the fish, and you will eat it without realizing it when making sashimi. That's how Anisakis enters the human body.

Anisakis, which has invaded the human stomach in this way, tries to break through the wall of the stomach. When this happens, people may experience severe abdominal pain, sometimes to the point where they are unable to stand.

Anisakiasis can only live in the stomach for about 4 days, so if you can tolerate the severe pain, it will heal if you leave it alone, but if Anisakis invades the small intestine, open surgery will be required. Let's go to the hospital as soon as possible.

As mentioned earlier, the damage caused by Anisakis is increasing year by year. One of the reasons for this is that the distribution of raw fish has become more active due to improvements in refrigeration technology and media coverage of raw eating as a gourmet food.

Source: https://www.fsc.go.jp/sonota/factsheets/factsheets_anisakidae.pdf

The above figure shows the annual trends in the number of food poisoning patients caused by Anisakis.
It can be seen that the number of patients has increased approximately 18 times between 2006 and 2013.

Damage caused by Anisakis to businesses and how to deal with it

Anisakis damage to the fishing industry

Let's look at the damage caused by Anisakis from the perspective of the fisheries industry, rather than the consumer's perspective. There are two main types of damage suffered by fisheries industries.

Those are the two points above.

First, let's take a closer look at the former.
As mentioned in the previous section, the number of cases of Anisakis food poisoning is increasing year by year, but at present it is not widely recognized by consumers, but as the number of patients increases further in the future, it is thought that awareness will increase. .
Demand for raw fish that may contain Anisakis then falls, causing prices to fall. In this way, the sales of fisheries producers will decrease.

Next, let's consider the latter. If a patient is infected with food poisoning due to Anisakis, the patient's eating history will be investigated over the past four days to determine the source of the infection. If a restaurant or retail store is identified as a source of infection, the reputation of the business that distributes products to those stores could suffer.

The challenge for fisheries producers is to take measures against Anisakis before this situation occurs.

How to kill Anisakis

So how can we deal with Anisakis?
There are two ways to kill Anisakis.
That is heating and freezing.

Anisakis is extremely sensitive to heat and can be killed instantly by applying heat of about 70 degrees Celsius. However, if it is heated, it is no longer raw, so this time we will focus on another method, freezing.

Anisakis is killed by freezing at -20°C for 24 hours. However, it is very difficult to kill Anisakis using regular commercial freezers.
The reason for this is that stable temperature control is difficult and it is impossible to maintain a temperature setting of -20℃.

Freezers have a defrost function that removes frost from the fan that supplies cold air to the freezer. This defrosting process is performed about 4 times a day, and the temperature inside the refrigerator rises by about 5°C during defrosting. Also, opening and closing the door will cause the temperature inside the refrigerator to rise.

Also, you need to consider that it takes about half a day for the food to cool down to -20℃ after it is placed in the freezer.
For these reasons, it is difficult to kill Anisakis in a regular commercial freezer, and it takes a considerable amount of time.

How to deal with it using rapid freezer

Therefore, we will introduce a solution using rapid freezer is made with the latest technology among freezers.
rapid freezer can quickly freeze food at extremely low temperatures of -35℃. If you look at the diagram below, you can see that the time it takes for food to reach -20℃ is more than three times different between a regular freezer and rapid freezer.

Furthermore, the final temperature reached is -18°C in a normal freezer, but it can be lowered to -35°C in rapid freezer, so the time it takes for Anisakis to die can be significantly shortened.
Also, there is no need to worry about the temperature rising due to defrosting. rapid freezer are designed to prevent frost from forming and do not defrost.

In this way, rapid freezer are extremely effective in killing Anisakis because they can maintain stable low temperatures for a short period of time.

Three reasons why we recommend rapid freezing

In addition to the advantage of being able to kill Anisakis, there are three major advantages that I would like to introduce.

Can be distributed fresher than raw food

The first point is that it is possible to distribute fresher fish than raw fish.
In areas that are geographically far from the sea, the process of delivering fish takes several days, resulting in a loss of freshness.
Comparing raw fish that is not as fresh as this and frozen fish that has been rapid freezing, the latter retains its freshness and remains delicious even after being thawed and is delivered to consumers.

rapid freezing allows fish to be frozen without damaging cells during the freezing process, so even when thawed, the fish remains almost the same as fresh.

Can expand sales channels

The second advantage is that you can expect to expand your sales channels. Because the fish is frozen before being distributed, it can maintain its freshness for an extended period of time incomparable to raw fish.
As a result, fish can be delivered in a fresh state to areas where it is currently not possible to distribute fish, and food distribution will become even more active.
It is possible to expand sales channels even overseas.

Can reduce transportation costs

The last benefit I will introduce is reduced transportation costs.
Nowadays, as raw fish is becoming more popular, delicious fish caught in Hokkaido and Kyushu is now distributed in urban areas such as Tokyo. However, in order to distribute fresh fish from distant regions, it must be transported by plane in a short time, resulting in extremely high transportation costs.

However, frozen fish can maintain its freshness over a long period of time, making it possible to transport it for long periods of time, making it possible to distribute delicious fish by transporting it by car or boat, which has low transportation costs. .

Conclusion

In this way, by introducing rapid freezer, you can enjoy many benefits such as maintaining freshness, expanding sales channels, and reducing costs while minimizing the damage caused by Anisakis.

For those who want to reduce the damage caused by Anisakis, by installing rapid freezer, you may be able to solve not only Anisakis but many other problems at the same time.
Why not consider it once?