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Explaining the term traceability and seeing it from the European perspective |
T. BORRESEN, Dept. of Seafood Research, Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, Bldg. 221, DTU, Lyngby, DK-2800, Denmark Several reasons exist for wanting to trace a given aquatic food product back in the production chain. It could be caused by health claims, or by a consumer not being satisfied with the quality of the product. Essentially one wants to know where the defect originated. It is not always necessary to go all the way back to the origin of the fish or organism on which the product is based, but in order to be able to do so, full chain traceability is required. Several definitions of the term traceability have been formulated, of which the ISO definition is most frequently used. It allows for tracing the history, application and location of any item considered and can relate to both the origin and distribution after delivery. Within a production unit, internal traceability can similarly be considered. The question may be raised if the product is genuinely what it is said to be, e.g. if a certain aquatic food product is made from a given species. This is termed authenticity testing. Within the farmed fish sector, central information about how the fish was raised can be recorded on a lot basis. In the presentation the status of the introduction of traceability for aquatic food products in Europe will be given. Recently a project supported by the EU resulted in specifications of standards for applying traceability for captured fish and for farmed fish respectively. The introduction is presently based on voluntary adoption in the industry, but the EU legislation is working on introducing regulations to be enforced by law by the year 2005. In the presentation several examples will be given of products the technical solution providers can offer for using information technology based tools for recording and transmitting data for traceability purposes.
Session 9, Traceability for aquatic food products
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