Bad fish

A team of researchers led by Professor Dermot Diamond at Dublin’s Adaptive Information Cluster (AIC) working in collaboration with the Marine Institute, Teagasc-Ashtown Food Research Centre and the Irish Fisheries Board-Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), has developed “Smart Packaging” for fresh fish and fish products that tells the consumer if their pre-packed product is spoiled.

The AIC is a major initiative involving researchers from University College Dublin (UCD) and Dublin City University (DCU) funded by Science Foundation Ireland.

The smart packaging is based on a sensor spot inserted within the pack that changes colour from yellow to orange/red in the presence of basic volatiles responsible for the characteristic 'rotten fish' odour of spoiled seafood.

The colour change occurs because the sensor contains a pH sensitive dye that responds like litmus paper to the basic volatiles. Although the colour change can be seen with the naked eye, a low-cost portable colour scanner has also been developed as a means of quantifying the colour change under everyday conditions.