The guidance aims to support industry in adapting to key legislative changes around information to be made available to seafood consumers, which many in the industry say have been unclear in how they should be interpreted and implemented.
Seafish previously published guidance documents on traceability under the EU fisheries control regulations (EC) 1224/2009 and more recently consumer information under the EU common organisation of the markets regulation (EU) 1379/2013. This latest document combines them into a single updated guide.
Peter Wilson, of the Regulation team at Seafish said: “Although these regulations have been in place for some time we continue to receive several enquiries on traceability and consumer information. This guidance aims to ensure that the seafood industry understand additional new requirements. It will help businesses understand what information they should be in possession of and what information they should be passing on down the supply chain.
“The biggest change is that the requirement to make consumers aware that product has been caught in the North East Atlantic now requires a reference to a particular sub-area or division instead. So reference will now have to be made to areas such as the North Sea, English Channel and Baltic Sea. This is a significant change and requires the industry to consider how this information can be made available throughout the supply chain.”
The Food and Veterinary Office of the European Commission intends to carry out a fact finding mission in the UK in early December to gather information on the controls in place on traceability and labelling of fish and fishery products.
The updated guidance can be found here http://www.seafish.org/industry-support/legislation/traceability-and-labelling.
