Establishment and Maintenance of a quality assurance reference service for the seafood industry

Funded Activity Summary

The market research conducted in the Quality Chooser project highlighted a number of specific problems.

· There is a high level of ignorance, doubt and uncertainty about food safety and quality . It must be said that food safety is both fundamental and critical in all quality systems, even those complex and internationally certified systems.

· This is a very complex topic, and information provided must cope with complacency, limited literacy , numeracy and technical knowledge.

· Policy is in a state of flux with authorities reluctant to give prescriptive guidelines and industry demanding a clear statement of requirements.

· There is a wealth of relevant information available from overseas sources which is not reaching the industry.

The needs addressed by this proposal are:

(1) Access to data on which to base food safety plans. Food safety plans will be required by all food producers. The VFIF project will generate information on this subject needed by all industry sectors. Producers will still require detailed technical knowledge on which to plan improve and benchmark their systems.

(2) Current awareness service on global trends in HACCP policy. Seafood is traded on a global market. FPA is already being required of exporters. Overseas authorities are increasing the surveillance and enforcement on imports, particularly at the level of point of entry. Changes in policy will be noted, and clients will be notified.

(3) Negotiation of second party QA requirements or vendor supplier programmes. A number of major corporate buyers of seafood, including supermarket and hotel chains, have shown interest in developing QA schemes for their suppliers. Both suppliers and their customers can benefit from access to a body of accurate, relevant data on which to base their negotiations.

(4) Information to assist in adoption of internationally recognised QA systems and continuous improvement programmes. References on implementation, auditing, and system review.

Objectives:
1. To establish and maintain a reference collection of material on seafood safety and quality.
2. To Collate and update the reference materials to be included in the SeaQual Packs
3. To provide detailed customised information packages on quality assurance on both products and processes in response to requests from clients.
4. To liaise with SeaQual on matters relating to quality management for the Seafood Industry

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 08-10-1998

End Date: 01-07-2001

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $43,069.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Contamination | Food Safety

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