Further understanding is required around the definition of abalone quality and how to measure it, compared to products such as salmon and red meats. The development of a rapid and cheap method for detecting taste/texture factors is necessary, and will be investigated in the project. Other future research needs on how the environment and/or diet can influence these quality factors and whether they can be manipulated to alter taste, for example, will benefit the industry in producing a more consistent product. The importance of the factors that affect quality vary according to the specific end-product to be marketed as well as the target market and consumer group, so a better understanding of market needs should be addressed.
A review conducted for the Abalone Council Australia Ltd. (McKinna et al. 2005) found that the key element identified as a barrier for Australia to break through the price ceiling was a lack of rigid quality and product integrity standards. This report highlights a number of product integrity issues for all forms of abalone including inconsistency in product quality, and identified that the abalone industry “needs a uniform grading and product quality scheme”.
This project will examine factors affecting quality of wild-harvest and cultured abalone up to the point of harvest, and also the post-mortem biochemistry and harvesting and processing effects, particularly freezing and thawing.

The project falls within Program 2, “Product Quality and Integrity” of the Seafood CRC. The end-user of the research will be industry members through the respective ACA (CRC Company member) and AAGA (CRC Supporting Participant). As the project will be examining some generic technologies and methods for quality assessment, this may have some positive applications for other projects within Program 2.