226 results

Seafood CRC: Review of the 2012 paralytic shellfish toxin non-compliance incident in Tasmania

Project number: 2012-060
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $149,085.00
Principal Investigator: Catherine McLeod
Organisation: SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Project start/end date: 7 Apr 2013 - 14 Jun 2013
Contact:
FRDC

Need

In October 2012 a shipment of mussels derived from the east coast of Tasmania was rejected by Japanese import authorities due to the presence of unacceptable levels of paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs). Mussel samples were collected and tested from the implicated consignment and harvest area and it became apparent that the mussels had bioaccumulated PSTs through feeding on a bloom of the dinoflagellate algae Alexandrium tamarense group IV.

Following the initial discovery, additional seawater and bivalve samples revealed the presence of A. tamarense cells and PSTs in bivalves at several sites between Eddystone Point and Marion Bay. By early November 2012 it was revealed that scallops and rocklobsters were also impacted by PSTs and concerns were raised that other fishery products, such as sea urchins, abalone and periwinkles may also be implicated.

The presence of the PSTs at high levels in mussels represented a major breakdown in the TSQAP management plan for biotoxins in the shellfish industry. It has also raised concerns from fisheries and health personnel regarding the potential need for marine biotoxin management plans for other fisheries products, such as rocklobsters. The full impact of the algal bloom is not known at this time, however some estimates suggest cost to the bivalve sector (including multiplier effect) of $7 million (mussels = $2million; oysters = $2 million; scallops = $3million) and to the rocklobster industry of around $4-5 million (80 – 100 tonnes behind at time of writing).

Given the loss of revenue, costs of rehabilitation and damage to the industry’s reputation as a safe producer of seafood, a review is required to determine the key factors that led to the non-compliance event, and critically, to learn from this event so as to assist in the development of strategies to reduce the probability of future events occurring and impact.

Objectives

1. What factors (e.g. biological, monitoring faults) led to the non-compliance event?
2. What have been the impacts of the non-compliance event on the Tasmanian shellfish industry and its stakeholders?
3. What similarities can be drawn from other non-compliance events domestically or internationally?
4. What are the key improvements that can be made to the TSQAP Biotoxin Management Plan to reduce the impact (likelihood and severity) of future non-compliance events?
5. What lessons can other bivalve producing states learn from this experience?
6. Is there a need to strengthen the ASQAP manual of operations around biotoxins?
7. What can the other fishery sectors (e.g. rocklobster and abalone) learn from the bivalve experience to reduce the impact of algal bloom incidents?
8. What can be done to improve communication and incident response for future events with nation-wide impacts?

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-646-90570-9
Authors: Alan Campbell David Hudson Catherine McLeod Catriona Nicholls and Andrew Pointon
Final Report • 2013-08-01 • 4.98 MB
2012-060-DLD.pdf

Summary

During October 2012, a shipment of blue mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) derived from the east coast of Tasmania was tested by the Japanese import authorities (Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare; MHLW) and found to be contaminated with unacceptable levels (0.8mg/kg) of paralytic shellfish toxins (PST). Through investigation by regulators and industry it was confirmed that mussels had bioaccumulated PST through feeding on a bloom of the dinoflagellate alga Alexandrium tamarense.

After the presence of PST in mussels was identified, additional seawater and bivalve sampling of sites spanning most of the east coast of Tasmania confirmed the presence of A. tamarense cells and PST in shellfish (oysters and mussels) at several sites between Eddystone Point and Marion Bay (Appendix 3). During early November 2012, it was confirmed that scallops, clams and rock lobsters also had bioaccumulated significant levels of PST. Other fishery products (including abalone, periwinkles, sea urchins, banded morwong, calamari, flathead and giant crabs) were tested and found to comply (i.e. below) with the maximum limit for PST.

This project was initiated in response to a request from key industry and government stakeholders for an external review of the non-compliance event. To facilitate the scoping of the Review, SafeFish undertook a series of stakeholder consultations in November 2012 to discuss the terms of reference (ToR) with the following industry and regulatory agency stakeholders.

The influence of fish movement on regional fishery production and stock structure for South Australia's Snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) fishery

Project number: 2012-020
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $371,409.00
Principal Investigator: Anthony J. Fowler
Organisation: SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Project start/end date: 30 Jun 2012 - 29 Sep 2014
Contact:
FRDC
SPECIES

Need

Developing a comprehensive understanding of the movement patterns and stock structure of a fish species is crucial for identifying the appropriate scale and strategy for management.

In south eastern Australia, there are several adjacent Snapper fisheries operating in South Australian (SA), Victorian and Commonwealth waters that are managed using different strategies. The SA fishery, currently Australia’s largest Snapper fishery, is divided into contiguous regions whose relative contributions to total catch have changed dramatically in recent years. The extent to which these different regional or jurisdictional populations represent a single or multiple stocks is poorly understood because of the limited understanding of the patterns of fish movement. For example, have the recent high catches of Snapper from Northern Gulf St. Vincent and South East resulted from high levels of biomass built up through local demographic processes or have fish moved in from adjacent regions or possibly even from Victorian or Commonwealth waters? If large-scale movement is involved, it must be temporally complex as it appears to not conform to a regular, annual pattern. The need here is to elucidate the regions of origin and movement patterns of fish that currently contribute to high regional catches in SA to inform about the demographic processes that drive the spatial and temporal variation in fishery productivity. This will point to the appropriate spatial scale for management. It would also provide insight for resource allocation amongst the different fisheries, which is currently being considered by AFMF to improve resource sharing arrangements for Snapper.

Objectives

1. To determine the origins of Snapper that occupy the different regions of South Australian waters, and determine if and when during their life histories that any large-scale movement took place to account for current patterns of dispersion. This will be based on a suite of otolith-based techniques.
2. To develop a better understanding of the movement behaviour of Snapper at several spatial and temporal scales throughout Gulf St. Vincent (SA), using acoustic telemetry techniques.
3. To develop a better spatial management strategy for the Snapper fisheries of south eastern Australia based on our enhanced understanding of inter-regional and cross-jurisdictional fish movement.

Seafood CRC: bio-economic model for SA prawn trawl fisheries

Project number: 2011-750
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $132,770.00
Principal Investigator: Craig J. Noell
Organisation: SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Project start/end date: 31 May 2012 - 30 May 2014
Contact:
FRDC

Need

In recent years Australian wild catch prawn fisheries have had to compete with increasing volumes of cheaper, aquacultured imports. This has resulted in reductions in prawn prices and reduced profitability for prawn fisheries. Historically, the primary focus of management for these fisheries has been biological sustainability. Given their demonstrably sustainable management histories, there is now an urgent need to examine approaches for maximising profitability.
South Australia has single species prawn fisheries in Spencer Gulf and Gulf St Vincent that target the Western King prawn. Both fisheries have Management Plans that include a detailed harvest strategy to guide fishing activities, and Performance Indicators (PIs) for assessment of fishery performance. While there are PIs to assess overall economic performance, economic needs are not explicitly considered in the harvest strategy.
The Gulf St Vincent Prawn Fishery (GSVPF) has recently undergone an independent review process, from which bio-economic modeling was identified as the highest priority for research in the fishery. Consequently the Gulf St Vincent Prawn Boat Owner's Association (GSVPBOA) has given endorsement of this research proposal. Similarily, the Spencer Gulf and West Coast Prawn Fishermen's Association has endorsed economic modelling a high priority for the fishery.

Objectives

1. Collate and analyse available data for the GSV and SG prawn fisheries for integration into the bio-econimc model
2. Modify the existing Eastern king prawn bio-economic model to fit the SG and GSV prawn fishery data
3. Determine economically optimal fishing strategies for the GSV and SG prawn fisheries
4. Develop an approach to incorporate optimal fishing strategies into the harvest strategy for each fishery
5. Provide extension of the developed model and its outputs to stakeholders of other Australian prawn trawl fisheries.

Final report

ISBN: 978‐1‐921563‐77‐5
Authors: C. J. Noell M. F. O’Neill J. D. Carroll C. D. Dixon
Final Report • 2015-06-01 • 8.76 MB
2011-750-DLD.pdf

Summary

In recent years Australian wild catch prawn fisheries have had to compete with increasing volumes of cheaper, aquacultured imports. This has resulted in reductions in prawn prices and reduced profitability for prawn fisheries. Historically, the primary focus of management for these fisheries has been biological sustainability. Given their demonstrably sustainable management histories, there is now an urgent need to examine approaches for maximising profitability.

South Australia has single species prawn fisheries in Spencer Gulf and Gulf of St Vincent that target the Western King Prawn. Both fisheries have management plans that include a detailed harvest strategy to guide fishing activities, and performance indicators for assessment of fishery performance. While there are performance indicators to assess overall economic performance, economic needs are not explicitly considered in the harvest strategy.

This project provided the prawn industries with a new mechanism to determine fishing strategies that optimise the economic returns to the industry rather than the current focus on biological sustainability. Additionally, the model will enable economic examination of alternate management strategies, such as reduction in the size of the fleet, which may provide significant long-term benefits to the industry.

This project aimed to:

  1. Collate and analyse available data for the Gulf of St Vincent and Spencer Gulf prawn fisheries for integration into the bio-economic model
  2. Modify the existing Eastern King Prawn bio-economic model to fit the Spencer Gulf and Gulf of St Vincent prawn fishery data
  3. Determine economically optimal fishing strategies for the Gulf of St Vincent and Spencer Gulf prawn fisheries
  4. Develop an approach to incorporate optimal fishing strategies into the harvest strategy for each fishery
  5. Provide extension of the developed model and its outputs to stakeholders of other Australian prawn trawl fisheries

 

Seafood CRC: value adding to the school prawn industry: Clarence River case study

Project number: 2011-746
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $52,859.50
Principal Investigator: Karen McNaughton
Organisation: SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Project start/end date: 31 Jan 2012 - 30 Jan 2013
Contact:
FRDC

Need

School prawns are the main volume catch for Clarence River Fishermen's Co-operative and nearly half of this yearly catch is supplied as fishermen’s bait and not for human consumption.

The traditional bait market is being eroded by changes to the use of artificial bait so the fishery needs to investigate alternative markets and revenue streams for their school prawns.

Because of their very small size, it is near impossible to produce a cost effective whole, value-added product. However, there is a technical opportunity to extract the green prawn meat from the whole prawn and potentially market this product as an ingredient/product solution for the restaurant and catering trade.

The potential market opportunity of the extracted product was seen to be positive and worth investigating when tested as part of another Seafood CRC project, receiving a good response from the chefs/end users interviewed.

To understand the extraction of school prawn meat, its uses and success within the market, the Clarence River Fishermen's Cooperative believe that this technology could add another avenue of value-add to the prawn industry, making a product that is available all year round without relying on seasonal changes.

This project aims to provide a commercially viable income generation tool to the school prawn fishery.

Objectives

1. To identify and pilot an economically feasible end-use/new market for extracted green school prawn meat
2. To increase profitability for the commercial school prawn fishery

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-921563-53-9
Author: Stephen Pahl and Karen McNaughton
Final Report • 2014-02-21 • 3.14 MB
2011-746-DLD.pdf

Summary

School prawns (Metapenaeus macleayi) are marine and estuarine prawns found along the east coast of Australia, between southern Queensland and eastern Victoria. Given that school prawns are low to medium priced, there is significant opportunity to increase the margin for this species by value adding. Due to the small average size of school prawns, it is not possible to produce a peeled product with current technology, but there is an opportunity to extract prawn meat from whole prawns.

This project investigated the production of an extracted school prawn meat from green and cooked prawns. The prawns were processed in a Baader separator which squashed the soft tissue (prawn meat) into a perforated drum. The extracted products were collected, packaged and the shelf life assessed through sensory, microbiological and biochemical methods.

SCRC: Guideline for quality and safety assessment of novel seafood products

Project number: 2011-739
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $0.00
Principal Investigator: Sutasinee Anantanawat
Organisation: SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Project start/end date: 31 Dec 2011 - 30 Dec 2012
Contact:
FRDC

Need

This project has been developed to address the following needs:

• Non- scientific people in the seafood industry need to have concise and clear guidance on how to assess shelf-life and quality of new products and advice on selection of packaging options
• Foodborne pathogens currently considered to be of low risk in seafood products may become a high risk in new product types, these need to be clearly identified within appropriate guidelines so that industry can ensure product safety.
• Current CRC projects have focused on the development of new product types and assessment of product shelf-life. This project will utilise knowledge gained in these projects and increase the uptake of current CRC outputs
• There is a need to reduce costs of unnecessary tests for new products

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-921563-54-6
Authors: Sutasinee Anantanawat Catherine McLeod Tom Madigan Stephen Pahl Ian Stewart Karen McNaughton and Alison Turnbull
Final Report • 233.46 KB
2011-739-DLD.pdf

Summary

This project aimed to assist the seafood industry with sound practical advice on the assessments of food safety and quality aspects of new packaged seafood products in a concise and clear format.

Seafood processing and packaging techniques such as modified atmosphere packaging and vacuum packaging have been utilised by the seafood industry to extend product shelf-life, assist in meeting the demand for quality and safe products by consumers and create new market access. However, these techniques can support the growth of certain pathogens that were previously considered to be of low risk. Furthermore, feedback received during discussions with national and local seafood processors suggest the seafood industry has difficulties with assessing food safety and quality attributes of newly developed products.

Project products

Brochure • 8.12 MB
A5_SEAFOOD PACKAGING GUIDE-WEB_Final.pdf

Summary

This Guide aims to assist seafood processors who are developing new packaged seafood products to understand:

  • potential food safety risks
  • regulatory requirements
  • processing and packaging techniques
  • shelf-life assessment programs

It is important that businesses developing seafood products consult with their relevant competent authority to determine specific testing requirements and sampling regimes for their products.

SCRC: Oyster Product Development Innovation

Project number: 2011-727
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $0.00
Principal Investigator: Stephen Pahl
Organisation: SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Project start/end date: 30 Nov 2011 - 29 Sep 2012
Contact:
FRDC

Need

Commercial in confidence. To know more about this project please contact FRDC.

Objectives

Commercial in confidence

Seafood CRC: wanted Dead or Alive: Novel Technologies for Measuring Infectious Norovirus Particles

Project number: 2011-726
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $37,401.80
Principal Investigator: Valeria Torok
Organisation: SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Project start/end date: 14 Jun 2015 - 29 Jan 2016
Contact:
FRDC

Need

Regulatory agencies in major seafood markets are increasingly requiring testing for viruses. Enforcement using current PCR methods has potential to cost Australian seafood businesses millions of dollars through trade disruptions and product detention. PCR methods have one serious drawback – they detect non infectious viruses of negligible human health consequence, resulting in the risk of “false positives”.

Norovirus cannot be cultured in cells, despite years of intensive effort; therefore we propose a different approach to resolving the problem. This proposal is to utilise existing knowledge about norovirus cell surface receptors to develop state-of-the-art optical sensing technology to better estimate the infectivity of noroviruses, thereby reducing risk of “false positives” and punitive regulatory action.

This demanding project brings together high calibre, internationally renowned scientists. People committed are:
Professor Tanya Monro (Director, Institute of Advanced Sensing) who recently won the SA Scientist of the Year award for creation of new tools and innovative solutions; and
Assoc. Prof. TuckWeng Kok and Dr Rod Ratcliff (SA Pathology), eminent virologists.

The new technology and international collaboration proposed, will create a platform to detect and effectively manage other viruses and foodborne hazards in seafood and other food, environmental and biological products – and has significant commercialisation potential.

This project is strongly supported by CRC participants, industry and regulators. It addresses Seafood CRC Output 2.2 ‘Diagnostic systems to assure seafood quality and integrity’, which needs greater effort for milestones (2.2.2. and 2.2.6) to be met.

Objectives

1. Develop sensor surface functionality of the SPR technology to improve discrimination between infectious and non-infectious NoV viruses

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-876007-06-5
Authors: Valeria A Torok Kate Hodgson Alison Turnbull and Catherine McLeod
Final Report • 2017-04-01 • 1.73 MB
2011-726-DLD.pdf

Summary

Noroviruses are common causes of gastroenteritis in humans. As with all pathogens with an oral – faecal transmission path, food can easily become contaminated. Oysters in particular can become contaminated with norovirus due to effluent flows into estuaries. Hence, the importance of fast and accurate tests for the presence of norovirus in oysters is constantly increasing. Currently, testing for foodborne viruses are laboratory based molecular methods, which although sensitive, do not discriminate between infective and non-infective viral particles.  Biosensors (biological sensors) may be able to overcome this barrier and might be suitable for real-time sensing and on-site monitoring. This project aimed to develop a functional biosensor for the detection of norovirus in shellfish.

SCRC: Postdoctoral Research Fellow (SARDI) - Toxicology

Project number: 2011-717
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $0.00
Principal Investigator: Catherine McLeod
Organisation: SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Project start/end date: 30 Sep 2011 - 29 Sep 2013
Contact:
FRDC

Need

SARDI Food Safety has strong microbiological capability, but limited technical capability in relation to chemical residues and additives, or naturally occurring toxins which require specialist knowledge.

The incumbent is therefore expected to provide additional specialist input to existing projects, including:
1) Market Access Defenders (Prawns) - provide input into risk:benefit assessment in relation to Cadmium in Prawns
2) Market Access for Abalone - Marine Biotoxins - application of analytical skills to laboratory results from the monitoring programme
3) Sulphites in Abalone - provide technical expertise to assist with the risk assessment
4) Provision of technical advice in the area of toxicology/chemistry to SafeFish to assist in resolution of technical trade issues.

The incumbent will be expected to work closely with the AS CRC industry participants to develop a research projects in the area of chemical residues and natural toxins. Given current industry priorities concerning the development of marine conservation parks, initial consideration will be given to the development of a project to 'map' Australia's marine environment with respect to chemical contaminants and this information would then be available for industry use in the 'marine park' debate.

SCRC: Postdoctoral Research Fellow (SARDI) Quality

Project number: 2011-716
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $0.00
Principal Investigator: Karen McNaughton
Organisation: SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Project start/end date: 31 Aug 2011 - 30 Aug 2013
Contact:
FRDC

Need

SARDI has strong capability in seafood physiology, seafood engineering and new product development but limited technical capability in the area of post-harvest finished product quality and quality management systems. This role will fill this capability gap and provide process and product quality improvements (e.g. freezing and shelf life extension activities) which should translate rapidly into improvements in industrial processes.

Projects where support in the maintenance of product quality would provide significant value include:-
- Research, develop and trial of new abalone products in China. This new position will provide the technical resource to the project to translate the quality criteria (customer requirements) into improvements of processing, packaging, product storage and transport through the distribution chain.

- Successful Sardines, This position will provide the necessary support to assist in the maintenance of product quality, particularly through the processing environment as well as in the implementation and ongoing application of HACCP and quality systems.

The post-doc will be expected to work closely with CRC industry participants to develop research projects to support the current market and product development research projects in program 2.

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