To protect your customers and your business, it’s crucial to ensure proper handling and transport of your seafood products. You have to do all the reasonable measures to prevent or minimise contamination.
How to ensure safe transport of seafood products
Whether it’s farmed Atlantic salmon, oysters, wild-caught prawns or tuna, farmed Barramundi or other seafood, handling and transport must be done according to the highest standards. That’s because the risks of physical, chemical and biological contamination are always there in every step of the supply chain.
Often, consumers are most aware or most concerned about biological contamination as this can cause immediate pain and hospitalisation. Contaminated surfaces and exposure may introduce microbes and biotoxins to the seafood product. This even gets worse because the seafood might have been stored or transported outside the ideal temperature range for several hours (which will promote microbial and enzymatic activity that would lead to rapid multiplication of microbes and production of biotoxins).
As a result, the businesses and people in charge of seafood transport make sure that all contact surfaces are always clean (and sanitised if necessary). These contact surfaces as well as the parts of vehicles should also be easy to clean (e.g. the design and construction of the vehicle, container and contact surfaces should be easy to access for effective cleaning).
When it comes to temperature, often the product must be stored and transported at less than 5℃ especially if the transport time will take several hours or a few days. And once received by other businesses such as those involved in catering, restaurant and retail, the temperature and time should always be recorded. It’s vital to ensure that the seafood products were not exposed for too long outside the temperature range (which will compromise the products’ overall quality and safety).
Here at Cooltrans, we ensure tight temperature control during the refrigerated delivery of seafood products. We regularly clean all contact surfaces and we follow all the relevant food safety regulations. Our team also makes sure that all deliveries are timely by constantly monitoring each consignment (and we’re always ready to send backup immediately). Contact us today about your refrigerated delivery requirements whether it’s a one-off consignment or a one-year contract.
