Seafood hygiene and safety status and effectiveness of quality management

Abstract

A polluted marine environment may end in food chain and pose risk to public health. Fish and fishery products are at the forefront of food safety and quality improvement because they are among the most traded food commodities. The present study was designed to screen the seafood samples for the levels of sanitary and safety indicators, to study the presence of bacterial sea food pathogens of zoonotic importance by conventional and molecular methods and their antibiotic resistance pattern by phenotypic methods, to estimate the level of heavy metal concentrations from the sea food samples and to assess the compliance with food hygiene requirements by comparing with the prescribed standards by ICMSF and FSSAI. newlineConcerning food safety, all the three landing centers did not comply with the limits for certain hygiene indicators and safety indicators in seafood samples, Bacterial seafood pathogens of zoonotic importance and their virulence markers detected in the study indicates pathogenic potential of the organisms and possible risk to seafood handlers and consumers. Cr, Mn, Ni and Zn exceeded and Cu, Fe and Pb were within the permissible limits of WHO (1989) for human consumption, indicating a significant risk to public health. Li and Ti were also detected in samples from all the three landing centres which is a matter of public health concern. newline