(TheFishSite) The Brazilian Ministry
Brazil-Arab News Agency reports that the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply has set forth technical rules for identification and quality in the trade of tuna, bonito and fish preserves in general.
The measure, issued in this month’s Federal Official Gazette, applies to domestic trade of the product and to imports, as well as exports in case the target country has no specific laws and requirements. The information was supplied by the head of the Fishers and Derivatives Inspection Division at the ministry, Paulo Humberto de Lima Araújo.
The ministry had already set rules for sardine preserve trade in 2011. Similar to sardines, there used to be no specific, official rules for the trade of tuna, bonito and fish in general, even though the industry already followed the standards.
Brazil-Arab News Agency states that Mr Araújo said, in 2003, that a public consultation took place and the requirements were outlined, but the process was not completed because the rules were not published. Based on the revised document, however, the ministry carried out another public consultation process and took all the necessary steps until publishing.
In the cases of tuna and bonito, for instance, 54 per cent of the preserves’ declared net weight is required to consist of meat, the product is required to be kept in either olive oil or edible oil, the amount of water cannot exceed 10 per cent of the net weight declared, except for grated products, in which case the rate is 20 per cent. Grated product cannot contain agglutinated particles and are required to be perfectly clean and boneless, among other requirements of the sort.
Brazil exports and imports fish preserves. One of the main trading regions is the Arab world. From January to November this year, Brazil exported the equivalent of US$ 529,000 to the region, including preserves of fish in general, sardine, and tuna. On the other hand, the country imported US$ 938,500 worth of sardine preserve from the region. It all came from Morocco.