Improvement effect of blueberry extracts on the fishy scent of tilapia by HS–SPME–GC–MS and GC-IMS analysis

The fishy odour negatively affects the quality and taste of tilapia, causing issues in the tilapia processing industry. Electronic-nose, Gas Chromatography-Ion Mobility Spectrometry (GC-IMS), and GC-MS were utilized to assess the impact of blueberry anthocyanin (BA) extracts on key fishy flavor compounds. The results indicate that as the concentration of BA increased (0.03−0.24 mg/mL), the response values of the electronic nose's characteristic sensors W1C (1.282−1.038), W1S (1.383−1.160), W1W (1.280−0.884), and W2S (1.532−1.177) changed significantly. This suggests that the addition of BA effectively reduced the accumulation of aldehydes, ketones, short-chain alkanes, and sulfur-containing compounds in the fish. A total of 57 substances in 8 categories were identified through GC-IMS, and hexanal and nonanal levels in the BA-treated groups significantly differed from the blank, with hexanal decreasing from (527.85 ± 77.78) to (58.88 ± 16.89) μg/kg, and nonanal decreasing from (209.66 ± 45.13) to (72.03 ± 17.37) μg/kg (P < 0.05). Combined with odour activity value (OAV) results, the BA can improve the flavor change of tilapia meat during storage, which might be connected with the inhibition effect on the generation of hexanal, octanal, nonanal, decanal, trans-2-nonenal, 1-hexanol and 1-octen-3-ol. Distinct variations in hexanal, trans-2-nonenal, and 1-octen-3-ol were identified in BA-treated tilapia samples through the partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and the variable importance in projection (VIP) score analyses.