Main Processing Steps of Tilapia Fillets

The processing of tilapia fillets is a highly standardized and large-scale process, with the main steps as follows:

1. Raw Material Receiving and Temporary Rearing:

• Live tilapia fish are transported from aquaculture bases to the processing plant.

• Weighing and inspection are carried out (checking vitality, health status, random sampling for drug residues, etc.).

• Qualified live tilapia fish are placed in clean temporary rearing ponds for "pollutant excretion" to further discharge impurities from their bodies and adapt to the environment.

2. Pretreatment(Slaughtering, Bleeding, Descaling, Evisceration):

• Stunning/Slaughtering: Use methods that meet humane and food safety standards (such as ice bath, electric shock) to render the tilapia fish unconscious or quickly kill them.

• Bleeding: Quickly cut off the main blood vessels to bleed the tilapia fish, which is crucial for ensuring the white color of the tilapia fish meat, reducing fishy smell, and extending the shelf life. This is usually done in a flowing water tank.

• Descaling: Remove tilapia fish scales using mechanical descaling machines or manual scraping.

• Decapitation and Evisceration: Mechanical or manual operations to remove inedible parts such as the tilapia’s head, internal organs, and fins. The inner wall of the abdominal cavity needs to be thoroughly cleaned to remove the black membrane and blood stains.

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3. Cleaning and Cooling:

• Rinse the tilapia fish body repeatedly with a large amount of clean ice water (usually containing a small amount of chlorine for disinfection) to remove blood, mucus, and impurities.

• Quickly place the processed carcasses in an ice-water mixture for cooling (0-4°C) to inhibit bacterial growth and maintain freshness.

4. Sorting and Filleting:

• Sort the carcasses according to specification requirements (size, weight).

• Filleting: This is the core step. Workers or automatic filleting machines cut the tilapia fish along the spine into two fillets. It requires accurate knife work to maximize meat yield, reduce waste, and avoid introducing small bones (especially intermuscular bones).

• Skinning: Use a special skinning machine or manual operation to remove the tilapia fish skin. Some products retain the tilapia fish skin (skin-on tilapia fillets).



5. Trimming and Grading:

• Trimming: Manually carefully inspect the tilapia fillets to remove residual tilapia fish scales, small bones, blood clots, fat edges, peritoneum (blood clots), and other parts that affect appearance and taste.

• Grading: Strictly grade the tilapia fillets according to their color (whiteness), integrity (whether there are damages), thickness, weight, and presence of defects. Different grades correspond to different tilapia prices and markets.

6. Cleaning and Draining:

• The trimmed tilapia fillets are rinsed again with clean ice water.

• Remove excess water from the surface of the tilapia fillets using a vibrating draining machine or an inclined conveyor belt. Water control is important for subsequent freezing and product quality.

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7. Quick Freezing:

• Individual Quick Freezing (IQF): The most common method is using a fluidized freezing device. The tilapia fillets are blown up by cold air to a suspended state, and the central temperature of the tilapia fillets is reduced to below -18°C in a very short time (usually ten to several tens of minutes). This method can minimize the damage to the tilapia meat quality caused by ice crystals, maintaining the shape, taste, and nutrition of the tilapia fillets.

• Plate Freezing/Block Freezing: Place the tilapia fillets on plates and freeze them as a whole into blocks. The cost is lower, but the tilapia fillets are prone to sticking together after thawing, which is mainly used for tilapia products with low requirements on shape.

8. Ice Glazing:

• Briefly immerse or spray the frozen tilapia fillets (especially IQF products) in cold water to form a thin and transparent ice film on their surface.

• Functions: Prevent dehydration (moisture sublimation), oxidation (isolate air), and fat oxidation during frozen storage, and maintain the product's appearance and quality.

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9. Weighing, Packaging, and Metal Detection:

• Weighing: Weigh according to customer-specified specifications (such as 10kg per box, 1lb per bag).

• Packaging: Put into inner packaging bags (such as vacuum bags, ordinary plastic bags), and then into outer packaging boxes (corrugated cartons). The packaging must be marked with product name, specifications, weight, production date, batch number, shelf life, processing plant information, certification marks such as HACCP, BRC, ASC, BAP), etc.

• Metal Detection: Packaged products must pass through a metal detector to ensure no metal foreign objects are mixed in the tilapia fillets.

10. Cold Storage:

• The packaged finished tilapia fillets are immediately stored in cold storage at -18°C or lower,  waiting for shipment. The entire cold chain must remain stable.

Key Points: The entire processing process of tilapia fillets is carried out in a low-temperature environment (usually a workshop ≤15°C), and strictly follows Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system to ensure food safety.

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