With the establishment of state based networks it is increasingly important to ensure that the products and services developed and delivered by Seafood Services Australia are relevant to and driven by local needs.

The original SeaQual food safety guidelines for harvesting, processing and retailing seafood were developed specifically to meet the requirements of Victorian legislation. Since then there have been changes in the development of the ANZFA national food safety standards as well as a number of SSA initiatives including the seafood food safety risk analysis, development of a draft seafood safety standard and the development of a national seafood food safety emergency management plan. The National Seafood Industry Training Package, released in March 2000, identifies food safety as one of the core competencies for anyone working in the seafood industry.

It is now timely to review the SeaQual food safety guidelines to ensure that they are pragmatic and relevant to various fishing industry sectors. In particular it is important to demonstrate that developing a food safety plan can be done at any level in the industry. To date there has not been much effort placed in relation to food safety in small, multi species, multi method fishing operations.

Demonstrating that the SeaQual food safety guidelines are useful pragmatic tools relevant to the whole industry will be an important aspect in developing the customer focus necessary to achieve an internationally competitive industry. The project will use the SeaQual food safety guidelines for harvesting and the associated template to develop specific fishery type models to further enhance the capacity of fishing businesses to understand and comply with their customer’s and the legislative requirements for production of safe food.