… responds to Common Fisheries Policy
Both JM and the Diario reports that ‘Fishmetrics’, a traceability system that cost around €55,000, was 90% funded by EU funds and impresses with the amount of information it is able to collect, in addition to ensuring reliable control in terms of food safety.
The Fishmetrics traceability system has been installed in the auctions of Funchal, Caniçal, Paul do Mar and Porto Moniz, and allows labelling the different batches of fish, associating all the information, available in Portuguese and English, related to the capture in a QR-CODE.
The system, which responds to the latest community guidelines on the Common Fisheries Policy, was presented this morning at Praça do Peixe in the Mercado dos Lavradores, in Funchal, in an event attended by the regional secretary for Sea and Fisheries, Teófilo Cunha, and the Director of Inspection and Control Services at the Regional Directorate of Fisheries, Nuno Gouveia.
Information begins to be collected when the fish arrives at the fish auctions, where photographs are collected as well as elements about the vessel that carried out the capture, in zone, biology of the species, size, and gastronomic aspects, among others.
All the Fishmetrics data accompanies the fish throughout the commercial circuit through a ticket, which has a QR-CODE that reveals the information with the help of a mobile phone.
“In commercial terms, it is an added value because you can have the origin of the product. In this case, we want to privilege the fish that is landed in Madeira auctions. On the other hand, all the information enters a database that allows other types of controls to be carried out, such as the identification of the species and its length in accordance with the legislation in force”, explained Nuno Gouveia.
‘Fishmetrics’ is also “a very important tool for research, as it allows a statistical analysis of the lengths of the fish, which is essential to later have an idea of how the resources are found”, he added.
“There is a control of the sea at the plate and for demanding customers this system fills a very important area”, noted the regional secretary for Sea and Fisheries, Teófilo Cunha, stressing that the approximately €55,000 invested in the system is a good value for the amount of information that it makes available to various entities and to the final customer who purchases the product.