Fish and Seafood Market Requirements – Part Six2 min read

In this penultimate installment that tackles the topic of buyers requirements for the European Union’s and EFTA’s fish and seafood market, we shall focus on other topics that stem from the “sine qua non” category that we’ve begin to talk about in our previous article, highlighting the fact that the strict conformity to the buyers requirements from this category guarantees only the acceptance of your product on an particular distribution market, not the actual commercial success of the product.

Besides the fact that the most important “sine qua non” requirement is the fact that your country must be on the list of EU-approved countries in order for you to export fish to the EU market, the heath certificate that each fish and seafood product must have is also of great importance, providing an official guarantee that the control system in the product’s country of origin is equivalent to that of the European Union, while also guarantying the consignments shipped to any country that is a member of EU and / or EFTA.

Traceability, hygiene and control are also important topics when it comes to food safety, and that is a key issue for the legislative impositions of the European Union food legislation. The framework that provides legislative regulations in the European Union countries is the General Food Law. Furthermore, EU’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) database provides examples of withdrawals from the market and the reasons behind these withdrawals. Perhaps, as an interesting saying goes “the smart man learns from his mistakes, the truly wise man learns from the mistakes of others”, it would be a good idea to check upon certain widespread reason for which a certain type of product is legislatively forbidden and consequentially withdrawn from the market.

A study published under the supervision of CBI warns that “an important aspect to control food safety hazards is defining critical control points (HACCP) by implementing food management principles. Another important aspect is subjecting food products to official controls. Products that are not considered safe will be denied access to the EU.” The study further highlights the fact that each and every product on the fish and seafood market will be subjected to official and often impromptu controls to verify that they are, in fact, compliant with the requirements applicable to them. The next and final installment of this multi-part article for our Best Food Importers blog readers will deal with the topics of contaminants, microbiological contamination and labeling requirements.

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