| dc.description.abstract | The export of fishery products is a source of national revenue for Indonesia. However, these commodities are often rejected by the export destination countries because they do not meet food safety requirements. Some examples of food safety hazards that has caused rejection include pathogenic bacteria, heavy metal, and veterinary drugs. Several interventions have been identified as efforts to prevent export refusal. Risk analysis framework supported by the concept of food safety objectives can be applied to determine the effectiveness of these prevention efforts.
This work aimed to develop mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of export rejection of fishery products due to food safety hazards. In particular, the objectives of this research were: 1) to obtain a risk ranking of food-hazard pairs that have caused export rejection, 2) to identify the handling of rejected products, risk factors and possible mitigation for export refusals, 3) to estimate the risk of rejection and develop risk mitigation strategies to achieve food safety objectives by using quantitative risk assessment.
The first step of the research has successfully produced a priority list of food -hazard pairs that must be followed up by risk managers. During this step, risk ranking approaches by the Food and Agriculture Organization was used. In addition to health impacts, food–hazard pairs were also evaluated based on economic impacts, using the rejection data from three importing countries: the United States, the European Union and Japan, as well as export and reimport data from Indonesian Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. The top priority for food–pathogen pairs were shrimp–Salmonella spp. and tuna–Salmonella spp. Meanwhile, the highest priority for food and chemical pair was tuna-histamine. Follow-up actions, in the form of a risk mitigation formulation was recommended for those pairs.
The development of risk mitigation was conducted through risk factors identification in food processing units in the second step. In this study, a qualitative survey method was employed to identify measures conducted by producers in handling of the rejected products. Furthermore, risk factors in the production process were identified, and possible mitigation were determined as preventive measures. Several activities carried out by producers in dealing with the rejected products, include: laboratory analysis, product transportation to Indonesia, product repair, re-export, conversion to animal feed, and destruction in Indonesia. Informants at this study acknowledged the high cost of those measures, thus emphasizing the importance of preventive measures. In the preparation of prevention efforts, identification of risk factors was carried out for three main commodities of fishery products: shrimp, tuna and cephalopod. Contamination of pathogenic bacteria, heavy metals, and food contact materials were the common risk factors in those three commodities. Risk mitigation included the application of hygiene and sanitation as well as rapid production process, the procurement of raw materials from environment unpolluted by heavy metals, and the use of safe food packaging. In addition, there were specific risk factors. For example, the formation of histamine in tuna which can be prevented by the application of hygiene, sanitation, and cold chain. Another example was excessive veterinary drug residue in shrimp which can be avoided by ensuring the prudent use of veterinary drugs at the farm level.
At the final step of this research, a quantitative risk assessment was applied to quantify the estimates of export rejection risk and the effectiveness of several mitigation scenarios. This step used the food safety objective concept to develop a risk assessment model for export rejection. The risk assessment was conducted on the shrimp–Salmonella spp. because this pair was ranked as the highest priority based on the results of this research first step. The estimated risk of export rejection was 27 rejections for every 100,000 exports. This value was within the range of the rejection rates from the export rejections based on the calculation of three export destination countries (the United States of America, the European Union, and Japan) and reimport data from Indonesian Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (11.6 – 114.4 rejections/100,000 exports). In this study, three risk mitigation efforts were also evaluated: reduction of initial contamination of Salmonella spp. in raw materials, decontamination, the use of rapid freezing, as well as their combinations. The evaluation results showed that reducing the initial number of pathogenic bacteria and use of rapid freezing can effectively reduce the risk of export rejection.
This research produced useful information to manage food safety risk in fishery export commodity. Lowering initial contamination of Salmonella spp. in raw materials and implementation of quick freezing became risk management options. Risk managers may evaluate those options based on acceptability and implementability. In addition, the step-by-step method of this research may be applied to perform risk assessments on the export rejection of other fishery product commodities. Information obtained can be used to develop or update risk profiles in relation to the global access of food commodities. | id |
