Portfolio III: Fisheries and Seafood Production

Targeted Issue: Seafood Safety
Responding to Processors and Regulators

The Issue

In response to several highly publicized outbreaks of food borne illness, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration redirected resources to include an emphasis on HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, a major change for the seafood processing industry that at first appeared to be onerous and prohibitively expensive because so many operations are small and marginally profitable. A need existed to train seafood processors and regulators and to conduct field trials to develop cost effective strategies that assure regulatory compliance. Under an initiative by the National Sea Grant Program, funds were made available to develop training programs. However, funding was not provided to develop specific model systems based on plant management requirements. Models were needed that integrated standard operating procedures, sanitation, CCP monitoring, records/data acquisition and verification. Based on experience with commercial establishments, we believed that successful implementation of HACCP would depend, to a significant extent, on the availability of tested, streamlined management friendly systems.

Our Response

Maryland Sea Grant was an instrumental member of the Seafood HACCP Alliance in developing and implementing both the three-day HACCP and one day sanitation certification courses. SGEP was represented on the national train-the-trainer teaching teams which trained a cadre of approximately 450 instructors. In addition to teaching the standardized courses, commodity specific HACCP/sanitation models were developed, evaluated in commercial establishments and used to train processors and regulators in Maryland and Virginia. Funding was sought and projects initiated to expedite the transition to HACCP and to improve commercial food safety management programs. A regional Sea Grant website was established; in addition, Maryland Sea Grant took the lead in producing HACCP Countdown, a mid-Atlantic newsletter for processors in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.

Managing for Success

Maryland Sea Grant closely coordinated with numerous agencies, institutions and industry organizations. Crab processing models developed under this program are an example of collaborative efforts. The models were used as the basis for recommendations of the Tri-State Seafood HACCP Committee (composed of health officials and university faculty from Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina) to industry and regulatory agencies. The U.S. FDA accepted the models and integrated the information in satellite training for regulatory officials and in its principal guidance document used to train inspectors and seafood processors. Maryland Sea Grant made specific recommendations based on analysis of thermal processing studies conducted in commercial facilities. These recommendations were adopted by the Tri-State Committee and FDA. Findings were presented to industry and academia at professional and industry meetings. As another example, funding was sought and awarded (USDA and Rural Development Center) to install and evaluate alternative monitoring equipment at four cooperating processing plants for comparative efficiency and effectiveness. They included manual methods and computer-based data acquisition systems for continuously tracking processing and storage temperatures under HACCP.

Achievements

The HACCP models were widely adopted by the seafood processing industry. They form the basis for blue crab HACCP plans now used by most processors in the U.S. The result is a common set of expectations by the blue crab industry and by state and federal health agencies. Alternative monitoring and record keeping strategies evaluated in processing plants identified methods that significantly reduced the time and cost requirements for many processors under the HACCP regulations. Several other Maryland companies have since installed monitoring instrumentation and report improved process control and record keeping consistency.

Impacts

The effectiveness of these programs has led to recognition of Maryland Sea Grant as a leader in seafood safety at the processing level. According to FDA, compliance with HACCP regulations in the mid-Atlantic region is among the highest in the country. Spin-offs include cooperative projects with other Sea Grant institutions to convert the Alliance HACCP and sanitation courses to web and video formats, and to identify/control the conditions responsible for troublesome seafood hazards ( Listeria and histamine) in commercial products. Sanitation audits of seafood processing facilities have identified contamination points and effective control strategies. The Maryland seafood industry, the Maryland Department of Health and the Maryland Seafood Marketing Program (Department of Agriculture) regard the program as highly effective. It provides Maryland Sea Grant a performance measure to assess the effectiveness of training and demonstration projects. More than half of the 20 participating firms have significantly altered procedures and improved the microbiological status of their plants and products.