Food Safety in the Seafood Industry

A Practical Guide for ISO 22000 and FSSC 22000 Implementation

Nuno F. Soares, António A. Vicente, Cristina M. A. Martins

• Editore: Wiley-Blackwell
• Anno: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781118965085
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Technology & Engineering
• Categoria: Food Science

Seafood is one of the most traded commodities worldwide. It is thus imperative that all companies and official control agencies ensure seafood safety and quality throughout the supply chain. Written in an accessible and succinct style, Food Safety in Seafood Industry: A practical guide for ISO 22000 and FSSC 22000 implementation brings together in one volume key information for those wanting to implement ISO 22000 or FSSC 22000 in the seafood manufacturing industry.

Concise and highly practical, this book comprises:

• a presentation of seafood industry and its future perspectives
• the description of the main hazards associated to seafood (including an annexe featuring the analysis of notifications related with such hazards published by Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed - RASFF)
• interpretation of ISO 22000 clauses together with practical examples adapted to the seafood manufacturing industry
• the presentation of the most recent food safety scheme FSSC 22000 and the interpretation of the additional clauses that this scheme introduces when compared to ISO 22000

This practical guide is a valuable resource for seafood industry quality managers, food technologists, managers, consultants, professors and students.

This book is a tool and a vehicle for further cooperation and information interchange around seafood safety and food safety systems. QR codes can be found throughout the book; when scanned they will allow the reader to contact the authors directly, know their personal views on each chapter and even access or request more details on the book content. We encourage the readers to use the QR codes or contact the editors via e-mail ([email protected]) or Twitter (@foodsafetybooks) to make comments, suggestions or questions and to know how to access the Extended Book Content.

CHAPTER 1
Fishery sector

1.1 Characterization of seafood

1.1.1 Classification

The term ‘seafood’ used throughout this book represents three categories of organisms – fish, crustaceans, and mollusks – each of them belonging to a different phylum within the kingdom Animalia.

Identification of fish from different species by nonproperly trained people can be very challenging and even impossible most of the times. The use of local or common names can also originate misunderstandings; the same species may have distinct names in different regions or the same name may be attributed to different species. The best way to avoid such mistakes is the use of the scientific name (in Latin) to clearly identify seafood species all over the world. This clarification is also of great importance since the economic value of seafood can be dependent on the species.

In taxonomic terms, the majority of commercially relevant fish species category belong to the phylum Chordata (subphylum Vertebrata), which is divided into different classes among which stands out the class of ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (superclass Osteichthyes, also called bony fish) (Nelson 2006; Auerbach 2011). By the fact that their skeleton is entirely composed of cartilage, sharks, rays, and skates belong to the class of cartilaginous fish Chondrichtyes (Huss 1988; Auerbach 2011).

Crustaceans belong to the phylum Arthropoda and to the subphylum Crustacea. Within this subphylum, the class Malacostraca stands out for being the class that has the largest number of known species by far (Saxena 2005; Auerbach 2011). This class includes shrimps, prawns, crabs, and lobsters which, in turn, constitute the order Decapoda (Saxena 2005).

Finally, mollusks belong to the phylum Mollusca, which is divided into several classes. Bivalve mollusks, such as mussels, oysters, scallops, and clams, belong to the class Bivalvia (also known as Lamellibranchia or Pelecypoda), and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., squids, octopuses, and cuttlefishes) belong to the class Cephalopoda or Siphonopoda (Haszprunar 2001; Helm et al. 2004; Auerbach 2011).

1.1.2 Anatomy

Bony fish

The skeleton of bony fish, as the name suggests, is totally made of bones. Wheeler & Jones (1989) suggested that the skeletal structure of bony fish could be divided into two parts: head skeleton and axial skeleton. The head skeleton is composed of three systems: (1) neurocranium, which surrounds and protects the brain and the sense organs; (2) bones system, that is related to feeding; and (3) combined hyal and branchial systems, which form gill arches and gill covers. The axial skeleton is formed of a set of articulated vertebrae that range from head to tail forming the vertebral column or backbone (Huss 1988; Wheeler & Jones 1989).

According to Schultz (2004), the body of bony fish has three types of muscles: smooth, cardiac, and striated (edible part). Although most fish muscle tissue is white, certain species (e.g., pelagic fish, such as herring and mackerel) have a portion of reddish- or brown-colored tissue. The so-called dark muscle is located under the skin or near the spine (Huss 1988, 1995). According to Love (1970), fish activity causes variations on the proportion of dark to white muscle. For instance, the dark muscle of pelagic fish (i.e., species which swim more or less continuously) could represent up to 48% of the body weight. The chemical composition of dark muscle differs from that of white muscle since it contains higher amounts of lipids, myoglobin, alkali soluble proteins, stroma, and glucogen (Chaijan et al. 2004; Bae et al. 2011). These differences, especially the high lipid content found in the dark muscle, are directly responsible for problems related to rancidity (Huss 1988). Moreover, muscle composition is relevant in terms of ability to cause an allergic reaction. A glycoprotein named parvalbumin, which is responsible for triggering the immune response leading to allergy symptoms, has been demonstrated to be 4–8 times higher in white muscle compared to dark muscle (Kobayashi et al. 2006).

Bony fish have a skin which is commonly covered by scales and they use the gills for breathing underwater, as seen in Figure 1.1. There are different organs within the fish body which form part of the digestive system including stomach, intestine, and liver, which are commonly known as guts (Johnston et al. 1994). Because many pathogenic bacteria are commonly present in the normal gut microflora, evisceration is the first critical step to control contamination of fish flesh after handling and before freezing.

Figure 1.1 Diagram of the basic anatomy of a salmonid fish.

Source: Roberts (2012). Reproduced with permission from John Wiley & Sons.

Crustaceans

Crustaceans are classified as arthropods and are characterized by the presence of a hard exoskeleton made of chitin and a segmented body with appendages on each segment (Adachi & Hirata 2011).

According to Raven & Johnson (2002), most species belonging to the Subphylum Crustaceae have two pairs of antennae, three types of chewing appendages, and a different number of legs, as presented in Figure 1.2. Shrimps, prawns, crabs, and lobsters, which are a very important fishery resource, have ten legs in the form of thoracic appendages. This characteristic reflects the origin of the name Decapoda, a word that derives from the Greek words for ten (deka) and feet (pous) (Ng 1998). The carapace of decapod crustaceans is reinforced with calcium carbonate and their head and thoracic segments are fused, forming a structure called cephalothorax. These animals can have a telson (or tail spin) in the terminal region of the body (Raven & Johnson 2002).

Figure 1.2 Schematic drawing of a male blue crab. (a) Dorsal view of external anatomical features. (b) Dorsal view of internal anatomy.

Source: Lewbart (2011). Reproduced with permission from John Wiley & Sons.

Allergies to crustaceans are common and usually more publicized than allergies to other seafood products. Tropomyosin, a water soluble and heat-stable muscle protein, has been identified as the major allergen of shrimp (Shanti et al. 1993; Daul et al. 1994). Tropomyosin can also be responsible for allergic reactions in other products such as mollusks, but it has not been demonstrated that this allergen cross-reacts with fish allergens (Lopata et al. 2010).

Bivalve mollusks

Bivalve mollusks such as mussels, oysters, scallops, and clams are invertebrates characterized by the p...