How Fresh Is Your Fish? – QIM-Based Mobile Application
“How Fresh Is Your Fish?” is a mobile application designed to evaluate the freshness and remaining shelf life of whole, fresh, gutted fish. The app is based on the Quality Index Method (QIM), a standardized sensory evaluation approach widely used in the seafood sector. It is available free of charge and supports professional, educational, and retail applications.
The application was introduced to demonstrate how applied research can be transformed into a practical digital tool. Today, it serves as an accessible solution for consistent freshness assessment without the need to know the exact age of the fish.
Multilingual Access and Availability
To ensure broad usability, the app has been developed in eleven languages. This multilingual structure allows users in different regions to apply the same evaluation logic and achieve comparable results. Functional descriptions of the app are also provided in several major European languages, supporting training and onboarding.
The app is compatible with common mobile devices and does not require additional hardware, making it easy to implement in daily workflows.
QIM-Based Sensory Evaluation
How the Freshness Assessment Works
The assessment process follows a guided, step-by-step structure that focuses on sensory attributes such as odour, texture, and visible appearance. Users evaluate characteristics including skin condition, eye clarity, and gill quality. Each observation contributes to an overall score that reflects freshness.
The final result is displayed immediately after completion of the assessment. In addition to a freshness score, the app provides an estimation of the remaining shelf life, calculated directly from the QIM evaluation.
This approach removes subjectivity and replaces intuition with a standardized method that can be applied consistently across different control points.
Role Within the Seafood Supply Chain
Maintaining quality from harvest to final sale is critical for seafood products. The app can be used at multiple stages of the supply chain, including reception, storage, transport, and retail display, provided the fish is raw, fresh, whole, and gutted.
Although originally developed for professional use, the application has also proven valuable in education and training environments, as well as at supermarket seafood counters where transparency and consistency are increasingly important.
Supported Species and Future Expansion
At present, the application supports freshness assessment for a limited number of commonly traded fish species. The structure of the app allows for continuous expansion, and additional species are planned for future updates to reflect market needs and scientific developments.
Current Functional Scope
| Aspect | Description |
| Evaluation method | Quality Index Method (QIM) |
| Product type | Whole, fresh, gutted fish |
| Result output | Instant freshness score and shelf-life estimate |
| Language support | 11 languages |
| Cost | Free to use |
| Primary users | Industry, education, retail, inspection |
dits, quality tracking, and internal reporting.
Practical Value Beyond Industry Use
While the app is most frequently used by industry professionals, scientific institutions, and control authorities, it is equally suitable for training purposes and demonstrations. Its clear structure makes it an effective educational tool for explaining sensory evaluation principles and freshness dynamics.
By combining scientific reliability with mobile accessibility, “How Fresh Is Your Fish?” bridges the gap between research and everyday quality control practice.