title: Insights from an international stakeholder consultation to identify informational needs related to seafood safety.
abstract: Food safety assessment and communication have a strong importance in reducing human health risks related to food consumption. The research carried out within the ECsafeSEAFOOD project aims to assess seafood safety issues, mainly related to non-regulated priority environmental contaminants, and to evaluate their impact on public health. In order to make the research results accessible and exploitable, and to respond to actual stakeholders' demands, a consultation with international stakeholders was performed by means of a survey. The focus was on policy and decision makers, food producers and processors, and agencies (i.e. EU and National or Regional agencies related to Food Safety or Public Health) and consumer organisations. The survey considered questions related to: seafood safety assessment and mitigation strategies, availability of data, such as the level of information on different contaminants, and communication among different stakeholder groups. Furthermore, stakeholders were asked to give their opinion on how they believe consumers perceive risks associated with environmental contaminants. The survey was distributed to 531 key stakeholders and 91 responses were received from stakeholders from 30 EU and non-EU countries. The main results show that communication between different groups of stakeholders needs to be improved and that there is a deficit of information and data in the field of seafood safety. This pertains mainly to the transfer of contaminants between the environment and seafood, and to the diversity of environmental contaminants such as plastic additives, algal toxins and hormones. On-line tools were perceived to be the most useful communication channel.
authors.affiliation: Aeiforia Srl, 29027 Gariga di Podenzano (PC), Italy. Electronic address: alice.tediosi@aeiforia.eu.
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tediosi
authors.affiliation: Aeiforia Srl, 29027 Gariga di Podenzano (PC), Italy.
authors.forename: Gabriella
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fait
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium; Department of Agricultural Economics, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jacobs
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural Economics, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Wim
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Verbeke
authors.affiliation: Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), Parc Científic i Tecnològic de la Universitat de Girona, 17003 Girona, Spain.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Álvarez-Muñoz
authors.affiliation: IRTA, 43540 Sant Carles de la Ràpita, Spain.
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Diogene
authors.affiliation: AquaTT, Dublin 2, Ireland.
authors.forename: Marieke
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reuver
authors.affiliation: Division of Aquaculture and Upgrading (DivAV), Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), 1449-006 Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: António
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marques
authors.affiliation: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 29122 Piacenza, Italy.
authors.forename: Ettore
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Capri
mesh_terms: D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005060:Europe; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis; D059022:Food Safety; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods*; D007391:International Cooperation; D017747:Seafood / Q000592:standards*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Communication; Environmental contaminants; On-line survey; Safety; Seafood; Stakeholder consultation