Production and Acceptability of Sea Urchin Bagoong

Bagoong production is potential export industry in the Philippines concentrated in Lingayen, Pangasinan. The municipality was labeled as the best place for bagoong making because of its perfect composition of salt humidity in air. The paste is produce using several varieties of fish such as galonggong, tamban, padas, sapsap and monamon. However, because of the decreasing number of fish caught in the waters of Pangasinan is not enough to support the increasing demand of market. Thus, there is a need to use alternatives for bagoong making. Sea urchin industry is a growing market in Bolinao, Pangasinan because of its availability due to management plan of the municipality to sustain its number. The research used sea urchin as raw ingredient instead of fish for the production of fish paste. However, three formulations were made to identify the best preparation of the sea urchin bagoong. It was found out that the Formulation 3 which has three cups of salt and one kilogram of sea urchin had the highest acceptability descriptive rating. Moreover, there was no significant difference among various formulations and the control indicating that the sensorial characteristics used to measure its acceptability were similar to the commercially produced bagoong. However, there was a concern on the smell of the sea urchin paste. Nevertheless, its taste was perceived to be similar compared to bagoong-isda.

Keywords:Bagoong, sea urchin, acceptability, sensorial characteristics, fish paste