Algal toxins in shellfish monitoring programme Scotland: guidance for food authorities
Wednesday 24 June 2009
Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 lays down the hygiene requirements for the production and placing on the market of live bivalve molluscs.
In addition, Regulation (EC) No 854/2004 sets out the official controls concerning live bivalve molluscs from classified production areas. They are enabled by the Food Hygiene (Scotland) 2006 Regulations.
Marine biotoxins produced by phytoplankton can accumulate in the tissues of shellfish. If these species are consumed by humans toxin related illness can occur.
As part of the controls to protect public health, Regulation 854/2004 requires a monitoring programme of shellfish relaying and production areas to be established to check for the possible presence of toxin producing plankton in the water and biotoxins in the shellfish flesh.
As the Competent Authority in Scotland, the Food Standards Agency Scotland (FSAS) is responsible for carrying out monitoring of classified production areas in Scotland for the presence of phytoplankton in samples of water and for marine biotoxins in samples of shellfish flesh. Similar monitoring programmes are carried out in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within FSAS the Local Authority Food Law Enforcement Branch implements and manages the official control monitoring programmes.
This guidance summarises the operation of the monitoring programme in Scotland, and outlines what action should be taken when either amnesic shellfish poisoning), diarrhetic shellfish poisoning and paralytic shellfish poisoning) toxins are found to exceed the maximum permitted levels in flesh samples.
