ABSTRACT
Fish is known to be an importance and well sought out food in Edo State, Nigeria because of its protein rich nature and serve mainly as primary source of protein in the State. The need to process fish is well known due to its rapid deterioration and reduction in quality as soon as it is caught, however the taste and preference/priority of different forms of fishes differs from one state to another. Hence the objective of this study was to identify the different fish processing method in the area, access the factors that influence consumer priority for the processed fish form and to determine the most consumed fish species in Edo State.
To achieve the objective of this study, questionnaire was randomly administered to nine (9) Local Government Area in the State, namely; Oredo, Ovia North East, Egor, Igueben, Esan South, Esan West, Owan East, Owan West and Esako East which represent fifty percent (50%) of the total Local Government in the study area. Two communities were randomly selected from each Local Government. A total sample size of 162 respondents were covered for the consumers in the nine Local Government Area with nine consumers from each communities from each Local Government Area.
For the processor a total of 18 respondents were covered with one respondent from each communities. Thus, a total of 180 questionnaire were administered. The data collected from the field were analyzed using Genstat Software version 12 and the result were present using descriptive statistics such as percentage (%), bar chart and pie chart. It was discovered that all the zones have good processed fish eating habit. Most of the respondents (45% and 18.2%)preferred smoked fish and fried fish respectively. While boiled fish was least preferred processed fish form (29.8%). Most of the respondent priority was because of income (30%) while others preferred some of the processed fish form because of its taste appearance, availability and their cost. The most consumed fish species was Clarid species (35.0%) while other species were also available but consume at lower rate.
Several fish form were consume with smoked and fried fish the most preferred. However, further research may be required to develop better ways of frying and smoking to meet both local and international standard.
