Abstract
Inherent variability in the New Zealand sea urchin, Evechinus chloroticus gonads quality poses a significant hurdle in the design and implementation of processing and shelf-life trials. This study investigated if the five gonads collected from an individual animal were sufficiently similar to act as replicates in handling and processing trials. For gonads collected from a single urchin, the average standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variation (CV) of the moisture content (SD: 059; CV: 0.01), protein (SD: 2.45; CV: 0.30), glucose (SD: 0.05; CV: 0.23), glycogen (SD: 1.40; CV: 0.24), alanine (SD: 0.05; CV: 0.23), glycine (SD: 40.74; CV: 0.13); asparagine (SD: 0.27; CV: 0.14), glutamate (SD: 1.93; CV: 0.14), methionine (SD: 0.30; CV: 0.07), valine (SD: 2.20; CV: 0.07), IMP (SD: 2.29; CV: 0.08) and K-value (SD: 1.73; CV: 0.06) were greater than the SD and CV of gonads recovered from different urchins for moisture content (SD: 2.85; CV: 0.04), protein (SD: 7.89; CV: 0.60), glucose (SD: 0.09; CV: 0.39), glycogen (SD: 2.09; CV: 0.30), alanine (SD: 0.09; CV: 0.39), glycine (SD: 239.98; CV: 0.77), asparagine (SD: 01.09; CV: 0.52), glutamate (SD: 12.17; CV: 1.02), methionine (SD: 3.09; CV: 0.80), valine (SD: 313.93; CV: 0.80), IMP (SD: 7.41; CV: 0.22) and K-value (SD: 7.47; CV: 0.21). It was therefore concluded gonads from a single urchin could be used as a valid means of reducing the initial inherent variability in the starting raw material when conducting shelf-life and processing trials.
► The inherent variability of sea urchin gonads complicates shelf-life trials. ► Gonads from a single urchin had less variation than gonads from different urchins. ► Using gonads from single urchins will enhance shelf-life trials reproducibility.