SCRC: SCRC RTG: Dr Catherine McLeod "European Commission and Australian Embassy, Brussels, IFREMER (nantes and Arachon, France) and the 7th International Conference on Molluscan Shellfish SAfety, Nantes, France
Final report
This travel grant was related to research into market access of abalone to the European Union (Market Access for Abalone: Seafood CRC Project 2008/909). In order to gain information on the technical barriers to trade and assist the abalone industry's desire to regain market access to the EU, a meeting was held between Dr Catherine McLeod (Post Doctoral Scientist, Shellfish Food Safety, SARDI) and Dr Paolo Caricato (DG SANCO, European Commission, Health and Consumers Directorate-General, Directorate E - Safety of the Food Chain) on 11 June 2009 in Brussels.
Informal agreement was reached that the current implementation of the EC mollusc legislation is a problem for the Australian wild capture abalone sector and is likely inappropriate relative to the risk. The EC suggested that the approach used to manage marine biotoxins for the capture scallop industry would be more appropriate. Follow up to this meeting will involve submission (industry and AQIS agreed) of data gained through Project 2008/909 to the European Commission to assist in regulatory decision making and facilitate market access of wild capture abalone to the EU.
Furthermore, this grant allowed travel to the 2009 International Conference on Molluscan Shellfish Safety (ICMSS) which is the premier event for shellfish safety issues where industry, regulators and scientists come together to discuss emerging food safety trends and challenges, regulatory management issues, research outcomes, new analytical techniques and research priorities.
Following the conference, several field trips were undertaken to oyster and mussel production areas on both the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, and meetings were held between Australian regulators, scientists and industry members and various French oyster industry representatives and research providers.
Seafood CRC: Australian Seafood Productivity Improvement Centre (ASPIC)
1.In Australia’s public R&D institutions, there are very few scientists with experience in seafood processing, packaging, new product development and retailing. As a consequence, most seafood processing companies import their staff or use staff from other food industries.
2.There is very little public R&D support for seafood processors wishing to start new ventures, develop new products, install new machinery or solve processing problems.
Final report
SCRC: PhD : Determination and manipulation of reproductive status of the captive-reared Southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) (SBT)
Wild stocks of tuna species are either fully exploited, over-exploited or depleted (FAO 2002). The increasing demand for tuna by the sashimi-sushi market in Japan, Europe and United States (Catarci 2004 in Mylonas et al. 2007) has put increasing pressure on the wild stocks. The technology for cage culture of the Atlantic Bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) (ABT) in Mediterranean countries, Pacific Bluefin tuna (T. orientalis) (PBT) in Japan and Mexico and Southern Bluefin tuna (T. maccoyii) (SBT) in Australia has been well developed and industrialised (Sawada et al. 2005).
Domesticating these ranched species (i.e. breeding them in captivity) would allow for a larger number of fish to be produced to aid the development of sustainable farming (Sawada et al. 2005, Corriero et al. 2007, Mylonas et al. 2007). While work has been done on the domestication of PBT and ABT, including the development of captive broodstock management and spawning methods (Sawada et al. 2005, Corriero et al. 2007, Mylonas et al. 2007), little work has been done on SBT.
The candidates rersearch project allows for basic research to be carried out alongside commercial operations and development. This unique situation provides the opportunity for sound basic student research to be embeded into a broader commercially focused research project. It also adds a highly innovative aspect of exploring germ cell transplantation as a possible long term alternative to holding SBT broodstocks.
Seafood CRC: Tracking seafood consumption and measuring consumer acceptance of innovation in the Australian seafood industry
It has been acknowledged that the seafood industry is facing increased threats. Thus, the industry needs to attract more people to eat more seafood and on a more regular basis. To do this requires that the industry completely understand and anticipate what consumers value and demand, so that it can take advantage of changing consumer dietary preferences. Therefore, the industry will be better able to add value to seafood products to fulfil this demand, which will ultimately improve the industry’s profitability.
Therefore, there is a need for the seafood industry as a whole to:
• track seafood consumption—over time; more regularly; with complete geographical coverage of all major Australian cities; with greater coverage of all demographic groups; and using a panel of participants to measure real changes in their consumption and what caused such changes;
• understand consumers’ preferences and purchase patterns (and the changes over time), including light- and non-seafood buyers;
• focus on what consumers do, and the choices that they make, rather than just on what they say they will do;
• anticipate and predict chances of success for new products, including messages to do with concepts such as eco-labelling, health claims, sustainability, animal welfare, food miles, quality rating system, freshness index and so on. Ideally, this is done early in the R&D process, before too much money and resources have been spent, or where there is a risk of visible (and damaging) market failure;
• assess the effectiveness of promotional activities;
• build on the previous work of the FRDC in testing and quantifying various recommendations of these reports, especially those related to adding value to products (e.g., deboning fillets and ready-to-heat options);
• better estimate the likely market acceptance (e.g., willingness to pay, market share and differential segment response) of value added innovations.
Seafood CRC: Australian Oyster Industry Supply Chain Analysis & Improvement Strategy
Seafood CRC: South Australian Marine Fin Fish to Europe Market Development Plan
Seafood CRC: A one day workshop to define oyster ‘condition’ and to review the techniques available for its assessment.
Seafood CRC: scope of options to establish gamete cryobanking services to genetic improvement programs in Australian aquaculture industry
Given the small population of aquaculture stocks, maintenance of genetic diversity is a critical issue for many aquaculture industries. Genetic diversity within a population increases its ability to sustain the population in case of disease outbreaks and environmental changes. A sufficient level of genetic diversity is also essential for long-term improvement of economically important traits.
There is also a strong need to protect existing breeding programs from epidemic diseases. For example, when the outbreak of abalone viral ganglioneuritus occurred in Victoria in 2006, the farms involved in the selective breeding program had to be destocked, resulting in the loss of breeding nucleus and more than 7 years’ effort. Had a cryopreservation program been in place to freeze gametes from selected individuals, much of the R&D effort would have been recoverable.
Gamete cryopreservation is a secure method for the ex situ preservation of genetic diversity and genetically improved materials, thus providing opportunities to reconstruct the original genetic make-up, re-establish the improved nucleus population, and establish genetic linkage among different generations and/or runs. Moreover, transporting cryopreserved gametes is relatively simple, has less chance for disease translocations as gametes are less likely to carry pathogens than whole animals, and enhances the efficiency of disseminating genetic gains to industry.
The use of specialised cryobanking facilities could potentially speed up the application of cryobanking services to the aquaculture industry. However, the suitability of standardised procedures used at these centres has not been evaluated with most aquatic species. Moreover, in aquatic species the published results show that gamete cryopreservation protocols are species specific. Therefore, these and other related issues need to be well assessed before the best or most practical option for establishing gamete cryobanking services for priority aquatic species in Australia can be recommended, and reliable and sustainable services be developed.
Final report
This workshop focused on marketing directions for the Australian oyster industry. The oyster consortium vision was to:
"Improve the profitability of Australian oyster businesses through increasing penetration of innovative and existing oyster products into new and existing markets."
The current status of the oyster industry was discussed along with marketing goals up to 2014 and marketing strategies for the next 3-5 years. For each of the 8 marketing strategies the opportunities for marketing projects were broken down into 'discovery and development' in years 1—3 and 'Action learning and piloting' in years 4-5.
The workshop was attended by representatives from the South Australian, Tasmanian and New South Wales oyster industries and representatives from the UniSA Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Services.