I would like to add to Hector's recommendation the excellent FAO publication: Huss, H.H., Ababouch, L., Gram, L., 2003, Assessment and management of seafood safety and quality. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper. No. 444, Rome, FAO. It has a chapter on traceability of fishery products, with examples of procedures, and a bibliography.
I was somewhat surprised by Paul Dion's original message that 90% of the people he met in the small island in the Indian Ocean were not aware of the EU requirements for traceability. There has been plenty of information about, or connected with, traceability and this particular legislation and there is no excuse for not knowing about it. The concept of traceability of food raw materials and ingredients is not new and indeed the fish processing industry has been slow to take it up compared with other sectors in the food industry. The EU legislation was published in January 2002 nearly 3 years ago, and there was a period of consultation and discussion prior to that. Any effective quality assurance programme for fish products will have some element of traceability built into it and the EU legislation does not introduce any new concepts or require any novel approaches to record keeping. What is does is to incorporate into legislation what should be practised already in fish processing establishments wishing to export products. See Najib Layachi's message about experience in Morocco.
I would like to draw attention to the efforts of FAO and associated agencies in publishing information on, and providing advice, on EU requirements for traceability, and similar legislation introduced in other countries. Some of this extension work has come through a network of regional offices associated with Globefish of which INFOFISH is the one covering the Indian Ocean. Information on these offices is given on the Globefish Internet site www.globefish.org. This site will also point you to the publication recommended by Hector, and to others relevant to traceability and quality assurance of fishery products. I note that the equivalent organisation for the Middle East, INFOSAMAK, will organize, from 6 to 8 December 2004 in Hadhramout (Yemen), with the collaboration of the FAO and the financial support of the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), an International Conference on: "Traceability, Quality and Environment within fisheries and aquaculture sector".
Peter Howgate
P.S. I posted a message about Spam I had received under this subject heading. It seems that it was sent to me directly and not through the Listserve. I apologise for any worries that my message might have caused
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