Utilization of Filleting Wastes in Improving Yield of Asian sea bass fillet P. Murmu, S. Chowdhury*,Prof. K.C. Dora, S. Sarkar, S. Nath and D. Paul *(Faculty of Fishery Sciences, West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, Kolkata, India. Email: supratim79@rediffmail.com) ABSTRACT The filleting wastes generally refers to the head, backbones, trimmings (cut offs), skin and guts considering the fillet as the main product. The wastes from the round fish processing is very important for the seafood industry in terms of economic, nutritional and environmental values. Utilization of these wastes through isolation and modification of muscular proteins from rest raw materials can lead to their application of functional additive in food systems. The addition of fish protein isolates prepared from wastes into fish fillets of same species using 1.5% of brine is expected to improve the yield. Most importantly these wastes, which otherwise would create issues of environmental concern due to disposal, will be put into better use resulting in economic and nutritional gain. In the present study, fish protein isolated from filleting wastes from Asian Sea bass fillets were injected (3% protein concentration + 1.5% brine) at here different level of incorporation i.e., 5%, 10% and 15% of the weight of the fillet using the injector. Highest weight gain (p<0.05) of 7.46% was observed in T2 samples (10% injection level). The highest fillet yield (p<0.05) at the end of 12 days of chilled storage was observed in T3 samples (93.86±1.12%). Similarly the highest cooking yield (p<0.05) of 38.32±0.42% was observed in T3 samples at the end of 12 days under chilled storage. The result of the study thus suggests the utilization of filleting wastes in the form of protein isolates which when injected at 3% concentration of protein along with salt (1.5%) had successfully improved the yield of the fillet particularly at 10 and 15% level of incorporation. This in turn will reduce the environmental concern for disposal of the wastes. KEY WORDS Filleting wastes, fish protein isolates, fillet yield, cooking yield INTRODUCTION