Seafood CRC: Development of a quality index for Australian seafood

Funded Activity Summary

There is an urgent need in the marketplace for adoption of a well recognised, well understood, practical, rapid and scientifically based quality index for fresh seafood. This need is critical as the industry moves inexorably towards adoption of electronic marketing (such as Sydney Fish Markets SFMlive system), trading, remote selling and increased exports to discriminating markets.

This index must be in a form that is readily understood and can gain wide acceptance both domestically and internationally giving advantages to industry in meeting consumer demands through:
- Grading;
- Shelf life prediction;
- Improving buyer certainty;
- Supply chain management;
- Conflict resolution; and
- Education and training.

This project is designed to meet these highly demanding ‘whole of chain’ needs by capitalising on previous research knowledge gained in projects funded by predecessors of FRDC. This knowledge has been taken up in Europe and refined into the Quality Index Method (QIM) (see www.QIM-Eurofish.com) now widely adopted by industry. It is not only used in electronic auctions and by buyers seeking top product but is also the preferred sensory assessment reference method in all the European fish research laboratories and is on the road to becoming the approved EC official reference method. European research has shown that for QI schemes to be accurate they need to be developed / refined for each specific species.

This project is designed to be a pilot programme to undertake the necessary research and development to tailor the QI for application under commercial circumstances to a number of Australian species. It will also define a strategy for the cost effective commercial role out to other species.

Objectives:
1. To develop appropriate quality index (QI) schemes for the nominated species.
2. To validate the QI schemes and investigate their application in appropriate commercial supply chains.
3. To undertake a cost / benefit analysis of the QI schemes on appropriate selected supply chains.
4. To assess the potential for the commercialisation and industry adoption of QI schemes and describe a strategy to achieve this.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 30-06-2003

End Date: 02-02-2009

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $245,760.00

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

Distribution | Food Safety | Market opportunities | Marketing | Price & quality | Supply Chain

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