This article was first published in the FISHUpdate Magazine April 2008.

Seafood Smoking training materials

Training in general food smoking, and particularly in seafood smoking, is hard to find. There are very few food smoking training courses or trainers available and apparently the only seafood smoking training course in the UK is delivered by the North Atlantic Fisheries College in the Shetland Islands.

Anyone unable to travel to the Shetlands has thus far had to rely on the few books available on food smoking or the slightly outdated Seafish open learning module on Fish Smoking.

This is soon to change as Seafish develop a training guide for managers in seafood smoking and an associated advanced seafood training course.

The guide is scheduled for completion in summer 2008 and will contain substantial and in-depth information on food science, manufacturing technology and food safety as applied to the smoking of fish and shellfish. The guide will also contain a model HACCP Plan for seafood smoking and materials for the in-house training of employees in seafood smoking operations.

Associated with the publication of the guide, Seafish will launch a new advanced seafood smoking course. This week-long, practical course will build upon the content of the guide and will give participants opportunities to practice every stage of the smoking operation under expert guidance.

It is anticipated that Seafish will be able to establish a seafood smoking training centre within the Seafood Training Academy with support from specialist food processing equipment suppliers, AFOS Ltd.

Seafood Smoking DVD in preparation

Seafish is developing a short training DVD on seafood smoking operations which will be used to support the new ‘Introduction to HACCP in Seafood Smoking’ training course. The DVD currently focuses on the cold smoking of white fish, but Seafish hopes to include hot smoking, shellfish and salmon smoking in due course. If you are a seafood smoker and would be prepared for Seafish to include some of your operation in the new DVD, please contact Lee Cooper at Seafish on 01482 327838 or l_cooper@seafish.co.uk.

Europe considers changes to listeria legislation

The European Commission is reviewing Regulation 2073/2005, which deals with microbiological criteria of foods, and includes the allowable limit for listeria in read-to-eat food (RTE) products.

To comply with current legislation, Listeria must be absent in 25g of product, or not exceed 100 colony-forming units per gram throughout shelf life of the product.

In December 2007, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued an updated Scientific Opinion on Listeria monocytogenes in RTE foods. Data quoted in the document showed a tendency for ready-to-eat, cold, smoked fish to contain Listeria, often at higher levels than in other foods. The data also showed that consuming small doses of L. monocytogenes has a very low probability of causing illness. EFSA recommended HACCP principles as a tool for keeping Listeria levels low – this is currently required by hygiene legislation though it is unclear how stringently this is being enforced across Europe. Encouragingly, EFSA did not recommend zero-tolerance for listeria in RTE foods, a position that, if adopted by the Commission, would have caused problems for producers of smoked fish.

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) has asked stakeholders for comments on the EFSA Opinion and also on a new draft guideline on the carrying out of shelf life studies.

The USA’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also been looking at its Listeria legislation. The FDA is formally proposing to relax its current zero-tolerance level for low risk foods. However, most smoked fish falls under the FDA’s high risk category; for this group of foods, the proposed FDA requirement remains the absence of detectable listeria.

For further information, contact the Seafish Legislation Department on 01482 327837 or on legislation@seafish.co.uk.

HACCP Plan for seafood smoking operations.

Seafish would like to develop a model HACCP plan for seafood smoking operations. A model plan has recently been developed for scallop processing, which takes advantage of current best practice in the design of HACCP plans. To achieve this, Seafish needs help from seafood smoking companies who will evaluate what is developed before it is generally released. If you would like to help Seafish and benefit from our understanding of HACCP, please contact Lee Cooper at Seafish.