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From the early years of the US catfish industry until the present, off-flavor has been and continues to be one of the industry's most serious problems (1-8). Consequences of off-flavor are numerous, expensive to address, and impact catfish consumers, processors, and producers. Additional production costs attributed to off-flavor in the US farm-raised catfish industry ranged from $15 to $23 million dollars annually over the 1997-1999 period (9). Farm level off-flavor problems can be carried over to the marketplace. Inconsistently flavored product can have potentially damaging effects on consumer confidence. For catfish processors, efforts to detect off-flavor are expensive and time-consuming, and, if undetected, can negatively impact sales. For catfish producers, off-flavor can delay market-sized fish harvests, increase production costs, and disrupt cash flow. It is difficult to control off-flavor because the offending algae occur naturally and can be found in most catfish production ponds.

This chapter will present research results focusing on economic impacts of off-flavor to consumers, processors and producers. More research has been conducted on producer level impacts than for impacts at the consumer or processor levels. This chapter will focus primarily on off-flavor effects at the catfish production level.