Abstract
A split plot design was applied to study the effect of frozen storage on the quality attributes of surimi. Gel strength of surimi products was shown to be significantly (P<0.01) affected by storage and its three‐way or lower order interactions with leaching, grinding, setting and heating processes. Whiteness of the fish sausages was significantly (P<0.01) affected by storage and its interactions with leaching, grinding and heating processes. Significant interactions of storage with other process variables implies that the conventional single‐variable‐at‐a‐time strategy is inadequate to optimize the surimi processing system. Storage conditions should be included in optimization.