After the European Union (EU) legislation on food traceability came into force on 1 January, fisheries, one of the last major remaining commercial hunter-gatherer activities, is now liable to the same legal food safety requirements as farming. It will also face the same pressures in the marketplace as the rest of the food industry.
"A development that began with the introduction of EU food safety legislation following the 'mad cow' (BSE) scare of the 1990s has now been completed with the extension to the fishing industry", said Jesús González GarcÃa of the European Commission's Directorate General for Fisheries.
The Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health, made up of the European Commission and member states' representatives, last month approved a guide to facilitate the implementation of new EU legislation standardising food and feed traceability. The legislation is meant to protect consumers through identification of the origin of food, and in the case of the fishing industry it is meant, amongst other things to help reduce the risk of dioxin-contaminated fish getting into the foodchain and causing scares.
Even though EU legislation may look complicated, the new EU traceability requirements are simple as far as the catching side of the fishing industry is concerned, said Mr González GarcÃa. He listed the requirements which include providing the commercial name of the species, the name of the vessel, where and when the product was caught, (the country of origin for inshore fisheries or the catch area) and the port of landing. The enforcement of the regulation itself is the responsibility of the Directorate General of Health and Consumer Protection working with national authorities.
The skeptics
However, it is no surprise that representatives of the primary producers are more skeptical about claims that the new regulation will not add additional burdens to the fishing industry. If these do not come from the EU and national authorities then they may come from the commercial power of the multiple retailers.
This is a view shared by the UK industry authority, Seafish and there are similar concerns from other organisations such as the English National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations (NFFO).
"Much of what the new regulations have made compulsory for us, we have already been doing, but the big multiples have seen this as an opportunity to make demands on primary producers that cannot be justified," said the deputy chief executive of NFFO, Doug Beveridge.
He explained that he had been told of demands by multiples not only to have the name of the vessel and skipper on boxes, but also the skipper's address and the names of the crew. This was 'ridiculous and unacceptable,' Beveridge said.
Mr Beveridge was in particular weary of the way the big multiples tried to shift the legal responsibility regarding food safety onto the primary producers. And while individual skippers might be able to escape such pressures, it would be more difficult for vessel owners who were also agents and merchants, he warned.
Similar views are expressed by Lorcan Kennedy, chief executive of the Irish Fish Producers Organisation (IFPO) and Javier Garat, general secretary of the Spanish Federation of Fisheries Organisations, FEOPE. Mr Kennedy also feared that fishermen would be burdened with more regulations and more costs.
According to a spokesperson from Seafish, the new EU legislation means that the 'catchers' were now joining the rest of the food producers and processors which are already legally required to provide documentation regarding all stages of the foodchain, from primary producers to consumers. No one sector 'was immune' from the legislation, and a fishing vessel was now regarded as any other food business and must conform.
He accepted that commercial pressure from the multiples would force fishermen to record more information than was legally needed, such as temperature control in the holds on board as well as the chain of similar information during transport and processing. Those who did so could expect better returns for their catches, said the Seafish spokesperson.
Tracefish
He explained that Seafish had now put in place a voluntary scheme, Tracefish, for fishermen that would allow them to comply with the legal requirements as well as the commercial demands of the multiples, providing chain traceability from catcher to retailer. It has laid down standards as to where, what and how data should be recorded for caught fish for full chain traceability; similar standards have been laid down for farmed fish too.
These standards not only achieve full chain traceability, but also are the only ones accepted by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and European Article Numbering (EAN). The standards are based on the Global Trading Identification Number (GTIN), which is unique to the commercial operator, plus a batch number, which is decided by the operator and put on products.
Tracefish has also identified how modern electronics and software can be used to transmit data through the chain and be 'captured', since the standards are formatted on a 'pull' rather than 'push' system. This means that only the minimum amount of necessary data is moved along the chain, the latter in order to protect commercial confidentiality.
Compliance period
It could take at least two years before every supplier is traceability compliant, according to traceability equipment manufacturer Necso Weighing of Hull, England. It sat on the European fish industry's technical consortium on traceability that led to the introduction of Tracefish and has received an order to supply a weighing and grading package, costing more than £300,000 (U$540,000) to the British fishing port of Newlyn, Cornwall. This makes Newlyn the first British port to have full traceability linked to the European standard.
There could be a "short honeymoon" period during which the authorities might be prepared to let people "get away with it", as long as they could show they were taking definite steps to become compliant. "After that, they will start jumping on those who have not met legal requirements," warned Nesco's technical sales director Gordon Norman.
He also warned that multiples were pushing for full traceability and that at least one supermarket chain was talking about radio frequency identification (RFID) by 2006, involving attaching RFID chips to fish boxes that record information about the fish in that box.
Hans Burmeister of the '3T' project in Germany, providing training on traceability and marketing of fresh fish, pointed to the pressure on the multiples by consumers who demand environmental and sustainable caught fish as promoted by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). The demand for more information about environmental and "ethical" standards would increase the demand for data being stored and displayed, said Herr Burmeister. That would include the consumer asking for example, 'Does it comply with the principles of fair trade?', he suggested.
The implications of even more policing of fisheries, stemming from the traceability regulations, were an added worry for fishermen, said Mr Beveridge. He believed that these worries, plus increased software costs for primary producers and processors to comply with the traceability regulations, would "put more pressure on an industry already under enough pressure" and undermine further what profit margins were left.
