Clare Winkel
Technical Solutions Manager at Integrity Compliance Solutions, 1A/20 Rivergate Place Murarrie Qld 4172 Australia
In 2019 globally there was over 36 recalls/import alerts for the food safety hazards in seaweed based foods worldwide. Australia instigated 14 of the 36 recalls/alerts as these food safety hazards alerts/recalls were due to imported seaweed food products.
Australia is a net importer of seaweed. Annual imports to Australia in 2017/18 approached AUD $40 million, of which 85% was for human consumption. Currently there are a small number of Australian seaweed processors of food products, either as bulk wholesale ingredients or finished retail ready products in Australia, using line grown or collected wild seaweeds.
It is a requirement that all Australian food producers must meet section 3.2.1 (Food Safety Programs) of the Australian Food Standards Code as a minimum but most local food safety authorities have little to no understanding of seaweed food safety hazards & so do not inspect the premises, as a food processing site. All current worldwide “Seaweed Certification programs” only cover environmental sustainability & social responsibility within the wild harvest and farming of seaweeds/algae. None of the available standards cover any aspect of food safety hazard identification or control for the production of seaweed-based food products.
This session will look at some of the known food safety hazards within processed seaweed worldwide for human food consumption, with a focus on 2 Australian case studies: land pond grown sea lettuce & wild harvested golden kelp.