Fish Quality

Quality of seafood produce is at the heart of daily and long-term decisions at the Port.

As part of its plans to introduce the electronic auction at the market from early 2026, PPA is taking control of the grading of fish within the market.

Already, Seafish-approved trainer and fish quality assessment expert Adrian Barrett has delivered training programmes to demonstrate a new, bespoke fish grading scheme that he as an independent consultant has developed for PPA.

The first training course was delivered on December 1^st and 2^nd 2025 to nine PPA staff and a second training course was attended by another nine PPA staff on December 4^th and 5^th. Both training courses followed the same format and were delivered at Peterhead Fish Market.

On the morning of day one, Adrian delivered a theory module highlighting the mechanisms of spoilage, methods of assessing fish quality, the Torry and Quality Index Method (QIM) assessment schemes and the Quality Grading Scheme for Peterhead Fish Market devised by Adrian and agreed with PPA Fishing Business Unit manager Marshall Birnie.

The afternoon of day one and all of day two consisted of practical training which allowed the learners to assess the fish quality of various species including cod, haddock, hake, plaice, coley and witch. This included looking at the appearance of the eyes, smelling the gills and touching the skin.

Adrian said: “Both groups were engaged in the training and wanted to learn more. The learners very much enjoyed the practical training. I’m confident that they will put into practice their new skills and knowledge when the electronic auction goes live.”

Following the training delivery, each trainee completed an online open book test which consisted of 20 questions. These were marked by a Seafish approved examiner and Seafish certification was issued to each learner.

Marshall said: “The training delivered by Adrian was excellent, he kept everyone’s interest. I was extremely satisfied with both the topic relevance and the overall content. Going forward with the electronic auction, it will be very useful for me and my colleagues.”