Aquatic product quality assurance is fundamental to development and growth
September and October mark the best season to savor seafood. During this time of transition between summer and autumn, seafood catches are abundant, seafood varieties are numerous, chrysanthemums are fragrant and crabs are plump, and the flavors are delicious, making one's mouth water.
Over the past 10-plus years, China's fishery economy has maintained rapid growth. In less than 16 years, total aquatic production grew from about 39.06 million tons in 1998 to about 63 million tons in 2014. As a major country in aquatic product production, trade and consumption, China ranks first in the world in aquatic product output, and is also the only country in the world whose aquaculture output exceeds its capture output.
Data show that in 2014 the growth rate of China's aquatic product imports and exports gradually stabilized and rebounded, achieving relatively rapid growth for the full year. In 2014, China's total aquatic product imports and exports reached 8.4443 million tons, with total import and export value of 30.884 billion US dollars, up 3.87% and 6.86% year on year respectively. Total import and export value exceeded 30 billion US dollars for the first time, setting a record high. However, while trade exports continued to maintain steady and relatively rapid growth, some problems in China's aquatic product market still need sufficient attention. On the one hand, there are aquatic product quality issues; on the other hand, there is the backwardness of aquatic product processing technology.
Recently, the State Food and Drug Administration released the results of food safety supervision and spot checks for the first half of the year. In the first half of the year, the State Food and Drug Administration adopted a random inspection method and sampled 33,252 batches of 24 categories of food samples nationwide, among which 1,236 batches failed inspection, for a sample pass rate of 96.3%. It is worth noting that among all sampled products, the pass rate for aquatic products and aquatic product preparations was 92.8%, making it the product category with the lowest pass rate.
At the National Freshwater Fishery Development Seminar, Cui He, executive vice president and secretary-general of the Aquatic Products Circulation and Processing Association, once pointed out that the main problems with the quality of China's aquatic products are veterinary drug residues and microbial contamination. The main reasons for these problems are that China's supervision mechanism and testing level for aquatic product quality lag considerably behind international levels, while supervision is insufficient, there are few quality testing institutions, and the technical level is low. In addition, some enterprises fail to exercise strict self-discipline, causing some serious quality and safety incidents that have had an extremely bad impact on China's entire aquatic industry. Therefore, solving the quality problems of China's aquatic products at the source is urgent.
In addition, China's current aquatic product processing methods still lag some distance behind those of developed countries. It is understood that aquatic product processing in the EU has characteristics such as convenience, simulation, health orientation, beauty orientation and fresh-cut processing. China's aquatic product processing should closely follow international steps and learn from their advanced experience, thereby enhancing the competitiveness of aquatic products.