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16/11/2012

 

Species Identification

The seafood industry is especially unique due to the large variety of species involved. Throughout the processing chain — from the boats and processing plants to the wholesalers, importers and retailers — there exists a good chance for misidentification of the species. While this is less likely with whole fish and more likely with processed fish, the problem can be eliminated. To combat the risk, the industry has established traceability systems to track the properly-identified whole fish throughout the entire processing system, and the regulatory industries are utilizing PCR-DNA analysis to reduce fraudulent practices. 

 

Industry, Government Cooperation Drives Quality and Safety

To control issues associated with seafood production, the industry has turned to food safety programs that include HACCP, GMPs, traceability of sourcing, and certification of materials and handling for the products. Many of these programs have been developed and enforced by regulatory personnel. There are many of these programs throughout the world, but in the U.S., this is primarily done through the FDA Seafood HACCP program and the U.S. Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USDC-NOAA) audit, inspection and testing programs.

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the safety of catfish, is also developing a program that will combine meat inspection regulations with the FDA and USDC-NOAA specs for other seafood species. This program will be handled by the Office of Catfish Inspection Programs (OCIP).

 

In addition to mandatory regulatory programs, there are also industry-backed programs, including the Global Aquaculture Alliance Best Aquaculture Practices. This program is a seafood-specific program that has been benchmarked against the Global Food Safety Institutive (GFSI). 

The industry and the government regulatory personnel have combined their efforts to develop systems of auditing, inspection and testing to remove companies that supply adulterated or misbranded products and to ensure the delivery of high-quality, safe seafood products to consumers throughout the world.