Determining the Origin of Seafood Products on the Belgian Market: Challenges to Traceability and Database Management

Abstract

In countries w here the m ajority o f the seafood is im ported, inform ation about seafood origin is im portant in particular from a food safety perspective. In the case o f B elgium , no database is available describing the origin o f com m ercial seafood products. T his investigation to determ ine the origin revealed three im portant problem s. F irst, infor­ m ation needed to stem from different non-related databases; second, im port countries did not define fishing grounds or product sites; third, seafood m ay have transited m any areas and no inform ation w as available on this. Since E uropean traceability regulations have been established for seafood, som e lim ited extra efforts w ith respect to data collection and m anagem ent can lead to (inter)national databases m aking seafood traceability inform ation m ore practically useful, for ex­ am ple tow ards public health policy m aking.