FDA's New Guide Aims at Seafood Safety

ROSEANNE HARPER

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has just published the fourth edition of its “Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance,” which is a complete, user-friendly overhaul of the original, officials said. While addressing processors, the new edition — the first since 2001 — holds important implications for retailers.

“This updated guide helps ensure that when a retailer is buying seafood he can take it for granted it's safe,” Don Kraemer, deputy director of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told SN last week. “He ought to be able to take that safety for granted, so he can then focus on the quality he's looking for in a product.”

The new edition alerts processors to possible hazards that didn't previously exist and advises how to control them.

Kraemer said it's important to note that seafood has been under federal control for years. In fact, the seafood HACCP program was the first mandatory preventive food control program put into effect in the United States.

“We update our guidance based on new information available about hazards and control. Sometimes toxins or pathogens show up in areas where they hadn't been seen before.” And that has been the case.

The new guide is meant to help seafood processors determine whether they need a HACCP plan, and, if so, to help them develop one, another official said.