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
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.