What is Traceability in FISH ? & Why is it important for Safe Food
Fish traceability is the ability to follow the movement of a fish product and its ingredients through all steps in the supply chain, both backward and forward. Traceability involves documenting and linking food products and ingredients production, processing, and distribution chains. In the case of a food borne illness outbreak or contamination event, efficient product tracing helps government agencies and those who produce and sell food to rapidly find the source of the product and where contamination may have occurred. This enables faster removal of the affected product from the marketplace, reducing incidences of food borne illnesses.
The need for traceability.
Globalisation of the fish industry in terms of sourcing raw materials, processing, and marketing has resulted in demands for increased traceability of products. This is due mainly to the increased length of the supply chain providing more opportunity for fishery products to either lose quality or gain the potential to cause harm to the consumer. In order to ensure both the quality and safety of products, more information concerning the sourcing and processing of the products needs to be communicated throughout the supply chain and ultimately to the consumer.
Traceability in Sea fishes at VTF
The rapid development of aquaculture products in the market and perceived risks through uncontrolled feed and medicine demand increased safety and traceability control. The greatest expansion has been in developing countries with the result that international trade in aquaculture production has seen increased demand for traceability. Whilst ensuring product safety has been the primary concern of the regulatory bodies, trade, environmental and quality issues are also seen as vital. This has resulted in a wide range of legislation; industry guidelines and international standards being developed for the industry.
Fig: Traceability achieved by tracking.
At VTF 100% Traceability is our basic mission to provide safe food to Urban society, example we have bio-secured cage farms that are installed at sea and fishes are farmed in the cages. This gives 100 % traceability of the fish.
Fig: Cage farming of Sea Fish
Prepared by
Abin.S.N
(MSc Industrial fisheries and Fish Biologist)