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First results coming from SEAFOODplus Traceability Area communicated in the form of an International Course

The partners in the SEAFOODplus RTD 6 Traceability Area have collaborated, together with three international centres, in the organisation of an international course on fish traceability, called Traceability of Fish and Fish Products: Technologies and Managements Systems.

Author: Begoña Perez-Villarreal

The international organisations involved were: CIHEAM-IAMZ (International Centre for Mediterranean Agronomic Studies), the Fisheries Department from FAO and INFOSAMAK (Centre for Marketing Information and Advisory Services for Fishery Products in the Arab Region).

The objective of the course was to provide the tools to enable participants to analyse and implement traceability in the fish supply chain in order to meet both regulatory and market requirements. It included the presentation and discussion of methods for system analysis, technological solutions to data capture and communications along the supply chain and the demonstration of how these have been applied within the industry using case studies and a technical visit to a fish processing plant.

The course was designed for professionals from the fish industry involved in production and quality management, as well as fish and food-safety inspectors enforcing traceability in their respective countries.

The course took place from 17 till 21 October in the CIHEAM-IAMZ in Zaragoza (Spain), and it was attended by 25 professionals from the fish sector. The audience came from several countries from the Mediterranean area (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Croatia, Turkey, Algeria, Italy, Spain and Cyprus).

During the course the last developments and applications related to traceability applied to the fish sector put in place in UK, Norway, Denmark and Spain were presented. The partners from the SEAFOODplus Traceability Area presented the first results coming from the 3 projects: METHODS, IMPLEM and VALID:

- Marco Frederiksen (DIFRES) presented several lectures dealing with Traceability standards: Regulatory and market requirements including the results obtained in the METHODS project.

- Different implementation systems were presented by Jostein Storøy (SINTEF) and Marco Frederiksen (DIFRES).

- Case studies coming from the IMPLEM project in Spain (tuna canning industry and pelagic fisheries in the Mediterranean); Denmark (herring pelagic fisheries in the North Sea) and Norway (farmed salmon) were presented by Antonio Duch and Alberto González de Zárate (AZTI); Marco Frederiksen (DIFRES) and Eskil Forås (SINTEF), respectively.

- Miguel Angel Pardo and Begoña Pérez-Villarreal (AZTI) presented the first results from the research developed in the VALID project on Validation methodologies for traceable data, including genetic authentication for validation of fish species, and the discussion of several different analytical assessment methods as validation tools to assess quality and verify information regarding seafood products.

The course included a technical visit in Bermeo to study a traceability system implemented in a fish chain from a fish auction to the tuna canning industry SALICA, which is a SEAFOODplus SME partner. This part was organised as a practical case and feedback discussions were held subsequently in AZTI.