Facultative certification of seafood to take off in Russia in a couple of years

System of facultative certification of seafood products which has already been practiced in other markets such as UK may start in Russia as of 2014, the idea has been supported by the nation's Federal Fisheries Agency, reports http://www.megafishnet.com/.

Presumably a separate self-regulated organization will be engaged in facultative certification. In particular, there is a need to develop standards for seafood quality, procedure and methods of control checks. Russian fishery industrials generally welcome the idea, though such system can hardly be launched without state support.

Along with facultative certification Russia's Fish Union stands for electronic system for seafood traceability and transportation to be based on interdepartmental data exchange. Such system would simplify veterinary control procedure as seafood producers would not have to waste time and money to get the necessary papers from veterinary inspectors. All the information needed would be collected in a single data base.

At present, such concept is being discussed with retailers and it has been already supported by Russia's Ministry of Economic Development and the consumer health protection service Rospotrebnadzor. On the consumer side, the above innovations (when introduced) would mean that each pack of fish would contain one more bar code containing information on fish origin, place and time of harvest, place of storage and processing. According to the Union's CEO, first elements of the system could be launched as of 1 January 2013 and in 2014 it could start working at full swing. The system is supposed to touch all animal products and in longer term - all food products.