Seafish is aiming to establish an agreed method of monitoring glaze levels on packaged seafood by meeting with industry experts, key stakeholders and national government.
This comes following labelling legislation changes introduced by the European Commission.
Peter Wilson, Seafish’s regulatory affairs advisor said: “In the absence of any agreed methodology for determining the glaze weight on fishery products the Commission are considering the establishment of analytical methods for its determination based upon existing international standards.”
There is currently no established formal methodology in place to test glaze in products.
However, the new regulation states that the net weight, excluding the glaze, should be present on labels for consumers.
It is expected that the Commission will propose methods on how to measure glaze in seafood products. But the meeting has been set up to give the industry an opportunity to advise on their preferred approach and give opinions.
Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and the National Measurement and Regulation Office (NMRO) have agreed to attend the meeting which is being chaired by Seafish’s Peter Wilson.
Mr Wilson added: “These can prove to be impractical in some respects and in the absence of any official methodology, some businesses have tended to modify, resulting in a number of different methodologies.”
“The National Measurement and Regulation Office (NMRO) wish to research the methods currently being used in the UK seafood sector in order to recommend a standard approach to drained weight determination in discussion with the Commission.”
It will be held at Seafish’s Europarc Offices in Grimsby, UK on 22 March.
