Opinions on setting up a quality spec. policy

I am at a very, very small-scale middleman frozen fish processing facility. Most of our materials are checked by sight and smell on a daily basis while in production and randomized samples are sent to a 3ed party lab at least once a month. 

We are now evaluating a new supplier and I sent a sample of their materials to the lab for Peroxide and TBA. It just came back that the Peroxide is N/A but the TBA is 5.5. Google says most fish are generally considered good quality is they are <3 and acceptable quality if < or = to 5. it was also noted that some species are statistical outliers.

We do not yet have a policy for lab specs. How do you establish them? I am very new to the industry and the boss doesn't know either. Do we knowingly gamble or play it safe with googled info.

It was the GOOGLE part that made me go, ah, oh!

I would suggest you get together with your lab (that understands seafood) and see if they would offer consulting in this area.

My first HACCP course that I took years ago was offered by the New York Sea Grant, completely based on seafood, fish, administered by the FDA - it was great.

Yeah, I was kinda stressed about the google ai info being ai and over generalized and without sources. Its not what you wanna base your business decisions on. Unfortunately, I am having a difficult time finding relevant sources on the species and conditions involved with our operation.

I have the big FDA Sea Grant HACCP guidebook(2022) on my desk. Its a great resource, but it is concerned with food safety more than food quality.

It was the GOOGLE part that made me go, ah, oh!

 

I would suggest you get together with your lab (that understands seafood) and see if they would offer consulting in this area.

 

My first HACCP course that I took years ago was offered by the New York Sea Grant, completely based on seafood, fish, administered by the FDA - it was great.