To: Seafood HACCP Mailing List
Fr: Pamela Tom, List Co-Owner
The 4th World Fish Inspection & Quality Control Congress was held on
October 24-26 in Vancouver, Canada. Over 260 representatives from
government, industry and academia attended from major fish producing and
importing countries. "Science and Technology on Fish Inspection and
Quality Control" was the conference theme and focused on methods for
improving inspection techniques, more effective HACCP verification
techniques, risk assessment methods and how to advance recognition of
national inspection systems.
Below is a brief summary by Joe Slavin of selected papers and
presentations...
-Valdimarsson, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO), noted that FAO has developed a system termed Fish Safety. Using
the EcoPort technology and multi-species information, FAO will be in a
position to provide information to assist in harmonizing HACCP based
inspection systems.
-Spiller, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), stressed the need to
look to risk assessment techniques "in ways that steward and promote new
technologies." He pointed out that while the 1990's focused on HACCP, risk
assessment is the next big thing in the new millennium.
-Bundy, Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), discussed regulatory
verification of HACCP systems and reported that Canada has developed a
framework and flexible tools to assess the capability of the processor to
operate in accordance with the documented system and regulatory
requirements.
-Hansen, U.S. FDA, reported on research on developing a model to determine
the optimal inspection frequency for seafood HACCP. A sub-sample of 402
inspections were evaluated and the firms were categorized as low, medium
or high risk and as manufacturers, repackers or warehouses. The results
showed that medium and high risk plants should be inspected every six
months, and low risk plants could be reduced to inspection once every two
years since these plants are largely compliant. Hansen pointed out that
these results are tentative and more in-depth study will be required.
-Suwanrangsi, Department of Fisheries, Thailand, reported on
implementation of the "UN Resolution on Code of Conduct for Responsible
Fisheries," which includes good aquaculture practices, good practices for
feed/drug and chemical suppliers, and good practices for harvesting,
marketing, processing and labeling of shrimp.
-Mukhina, St. Petersburg, Russia, discussed procedures used to control
Listeria in Russia. HACCP has been implemented in Russia since 1996 and
the National Center for Quality and Safety of Fishery Products is
monitoring HACCP systems in 300 processing factories. In some areas there
is at least a 50% Listeria contamination of fish in its habitat, and
contaminated fish is a cause for secondary contamination during the
processing and handling.
-Gelman and others from Israel reported on application of the "Cosmos"
instrument made in Japan which showed a high correlation between
organoleptic and data obtained from the instrument in evaluating the
quality of fresh fish.
-La Fortune, Canada, reviewed issues that can have a significant impact on
fish and fishery products as a result of discussions at the WTO Trade
Ministers meeting in November 2001. He urged industry to keep abreast of
these developments.
-Sumner and Gallagher of Australia discussed seafood consumption risks and
their management. A risk rating of low, medium or high can be made based
on the known illness when evaluated relative to the number of people and
meals. A high risk ranking is associated with hazard product pairings
which consistently cause large-scale problems, such as viruses in oysters
and ciguatera in warm waters. A medium risk ranking is associated with
outbreaks which are rare and involve lower numbers of consumers. A low
risk ranking is associated with hazard product pairings which almost never
cause illness.
A report of the Conference will be published by the International
Association of Fish Inspectors (IAFI), web: http://www.iafi.net
Source: U.S. Seafood News, Vol . 9 Issue 11, November 2001
Joseph W. Slavin & Associates
E-mail: jws2827@aol.com Web: www.seafoodglobalservices.com
--------------------------------------------------------------
This is the Seafood HACCP Discussion Group. Information is
available on the web at:
http://seafood.ucdavis.edu/listserv/Listserv.htm
For inquiries on subscribing to the list, e-mail: pdtom@ucdavis.edu
To subscribe, e-mail listproc@ucdavis.edu with the message:
subscribe seafood [your first name] [your last name]
To unsubscribe, e-mmail listproc@ucdavis.edu with the message:
unsubscribe seafood
Files from the seafood HACCP listserv are now archived at:
http://listproc.ucdavis.edu/archives/seafood/
--------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Nov 06 2001 - 12:18:36 PST