Seafood CRC: Australian seafood compositional profiles portal
INDUSTRY NEEDS
Seafood CRC participants need a common platform that provides easy accessible baseline compositional profiles in suitable formats about their products to enable them to meet their individual needs. The establishment of a secure web based portal will assist industry in identifying and removing barriers to uptake of labeling requirements.
The information needs to be robust, consistent and cover the minimum needs of the Seafood CRC participants for nutritional and contaminant information. Existing information held by individual Seafood CRC participants will be able to be housed in the web portal. Additional testing beyond that in this project would need to funded elsewhere.
Where there is a need to develop new analytical capability this will be done outside this project in the related methods development project.
The project will assist in meeting industry needs for:
- Promoting the public health benefits of seafood consumption more generally.
- Rapid access to credible information to counter negative media claims.
- Assist in addressing current and future technical market challenges.
- Anticipate and quickly respond to market access threats.
NATIONAL ENGAGEMENT
Seafood CRC participants require an expert facilitated process to undertake this activity. The panel fulfils a need of industry to have an entry point into national and international processes undertaken by State and Commonwealth agencies. Without the project the loss of market access share in international markets such as Hong Kong (due to labelling requirements being introduced currently) would be commercially damaging. For example the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) "Proposal P293 - Nutrition, Health and Related Claims" could be implemented with no seafood industry input or through this project a process of engagement with Commonwealth regulators could be initiated to secure industry outcomes. There is a need for any data capture activities to be compliant with FSANZ technical specifications.
Final report
There is a need for information in the correct format of the nutritional profiles of seafood species to enable seafood producers to meet customer-based and regulatory needs. This project gathered nutritional compositional profiles for proximate composition, fatty acids, water and fat-soluble vitamins, minerals and DNA species confirmation for 22 Australian seafood species.
This information will assist industry to meet domestic and international labeling requirements
All seafood included in the project contained various nutrients with species such as Atlantic Salmon containing consistent high levels of most nutrients such as fatty acids, vitamins and minerals. Another key finding of this project were all products (22 species) were compliant with Australian regulatory standards (where set) for cadmium and lead.
Seafood CRC: benefit-cost analysis of marker assisted selection in Australian aquaculture species
SCRC: Understanding Yellowtail Kingfish
Through existing farming practices it is apparent that there are several factors which may be limiting production and ultimately revenue.
Firstly, there is a need to identify an “ideal production strategy” to achieve forecast production levels. As temperature significantly affects YTK growth, feed conversion ratios and health, it is essential that the relationship between growth and temperature is investigated in fish of various sizes. This information will enable CST to make informed decisions on size and time of stocking YTK into sea cages. It is anticipated that this will improve production through shortening the production cycle and will reduce the standing biomass in the water, ultimately increasing farm profitability.
Secondly, maturation may be a constraining factor in YTK production, reducing somatic growth. There are also flesh quality concerns which threaten sales of YTK harvested in November-December, a period when males exhibit maturation. However preliminary analysis of work carried out in Seafood CRC project 2008/901 suggests that male maturity did not have a significant deleterious effect on the flesh quality at that time. Though there are numerous strategies to manage maturation it is initially necessary to characterise the occurrence of maturation and the factors controlling it. With this information, appropriate mitigation strategies can be introduced resulting in economic benefits to the YTK industry.
Lastly, as production is poised to increase, it is imperative that substantial markets are developed for YTK product. One way of increasing sales is to ensure product sold is consistently of the highest possible quality. By attaining knowledge on the quality attributes, shelf-life and nutritional content of the product, producers will be able to tailor a product to specific market requirements. Likewise, as processing techniques and cold chain supply routes are diverse, it is imperative that information is attained on how these influence the quality of the product.
SCRC: Understanding Yellowtail Kingfish
Through existing farming practices it is apparent that there are several factors which may be limiting production and ultimately revenue.
Firstly, there is a need to identify an “ideal production strategy” to achieve forecast production levels. As temperature significantly affects YTK growth, feed conversion ratios and health, it is essential that the relationship between growth and temperature is investigated in fish of various sizes. This information will enable CST to make informed decisions on size and time of stocking YTK into sea cages. It is anticipated that this will improve production through shortening the production cycle and will reduce the standing biomass in the water, ultimately increasing farm profitability.
Secondly, maturation may be a constraining factor in YTK production, reducing somatic growth. There are also flesh quality concerns which threaten sales of YTK harvested in November-December, a period when males exhibit maturation. However preliminary analysis of work carried out in Seafood CRC project 2008/901 suggests that male maturity did not have a significant deleterious effect on the flesh quality at that time. Though there are numerous strategies to manage maturation it is initially necessary to characterise the occurrence of maturation and the factors controlling it. With this information, appropriate mitigation strategies can be introduced resulting in economic benefits to the YTK industry.
Lastly, as production is poised to increase, it is imperative that substantial markets are developed for YTK product. One way of increasing sales is to ensure product sold is consistently of the highest possible quality. By attaining knowledge on the quality attributes, shelf-life and nutritional content of the product, producers will be able to tailor a product to specific market requirements. Likewise, as processing techniques and cold chain supply routes are diverse, it is imperative that information is attained on how these influence the quality of the product.
SCRC: Understanding Yellowtail Kingfish
Through existing farming practices it is apparent that there are several factors which may be limiting production and ultimately revenue.
Firstly, there is a need to identify an “ideal production strategy” to achieve forecast production levels. As temperature significantly affects YTK growth, feed conversion ratios and health, it is essential that the relationship between growth and temperature is investigated in fish of various sizes. This information will enable CST to make informed decisions on size and time of stocking YTK into sea cages. It is anticipated that this will improve production through shortening the production cycle and will reduce the standing biomass in the water, ultimately increasing farm profitability.
Secondly, maturation may be a constraining factor in YTK production, reducing somatic growth. There are also flesh quality concerns which threaten sales of YTK harvested in November-December, a period when males exhibit maturation. However preliminary analysis of work carried out in Seafood CRC project 2008/901 suggests that male maturity did not have a significant deleterious effect on the flesh quality at that time. Though there are numerous strategies to manage maturation it is initially necessary to characterise the occurrence of maturation and the factors controlling it. With this information, appropriate mitigation strategies can be introduced resulting in economic benefits to the YTK industry.
Lastly, as production is poised to increase, it is imperative that substantial markets are developed for YTK product. One way of increasing sales is to ensure product sold is consistently of the highest possible quality. By attaining knowledge on the quality attributes, shelf-life and nutritional content of the product, producers will be able to tailor a product to specific market requirements. Likewise, as processing techniques and cold chain supply routes are diverse, it is imperative that information is attained on how these influence the quality of the product.
SCRC: Understanding Yellowtail Kingfish
Through existing farming practices it is apparent that there are several factors which may be limiting production and ultimately revenue.
Firstly, there is a need to identify an “ideal production strategy” to achieve forecast production levels. As temperature significantly affects YTK growth, feed conversion ratios and health, it is essential that the relationship between growth and temperature is investigated in fish of various sizes. This information will enable CST to make informed decisions on size and time of stocking YTK into sea cages. It is anticipated that this will improve production through shortening the production cycle and will reduce the standing biomass in the water, ultimately increasing farm profitability.
Secondly, maturation may be a constraining factor in YTK production, reducing somatic growth. There are also flesh quality concerns which threaten sales of YTK harvested in November-December, a period when males exhibit maturation. However preliminary analysis of work carried out in Seafood CRC project 2008/901 suggests that male maturity did not have a significant deleterious effect on the flesh quality at that time. Though there are numerous strategies to manage maturation it is initially necessary to characterise the occurrence of maturation and the factors controlling it. With this information, appropriate mitigation strategies can be introduced resulting in economic benefits to the YTK industry.
Lastly, as production is poised to increase, it is imperative that substantial markets are developed for YTK product. One way of increasing sales is to ensure product sold is consistently of the highest possible quality. By attaining knowledge on the quality attributes, shelf-life and nutritional content of the product, producers will be able to tailor a product to specific market requirements. Likewise, as processing techniques and cold chain supply routes are diverse, it is imperative that information is attained on how these influence the quality of the product.
Seafood CRC: Understanding Yellowtail Kingfish
Through existing farming practices it is apparent that there are several factors which may be limiting production and ultimately revenue.
Firstly, there is a need to identify an “ideal production strategy” to achieve forecast production levels. As temperature significantly affects YTK growth, feed conversion ratios and health, it is essential that the relationship between growth and temperature is investigated in fish of various sizes. This information will enable CST to make informed decisions on size and time of stocking YTK into sea cages. It is anticipated that this will improve production through shortening the production cycle and will reduce the standing biomass in the water, ultimately increasing farm profitability.
Secondly, maturation may be a constraining factor in YTK production, reducing somatic growth. There are also flesh quality concerns which threaten sales of YTK harvested in November-December, a period when males exhibit maturation. However preliminary analysis of work carried out in Seafood CRC project 2008/901 suggests that male maturity did not have a significant deleterious effect on the flesh quality at that time. Though there are numerous strategies to manage maturation it is initially necessary to characterise the occurrence of maturation and the factors controlling it. With this information, appropriate mitigation strategies can be introduced resulting in economic benefits to the YTK industry.
Lastly, as production is poised to increase, it is imperative that substantial markets are developed for YTK product. One way of increasing sales is to ensure product sold is consistently of the highest possible quality. By attaining knowledge on the quality attributes, shelf-life and nutritional content of the product, producers will be able to tailor a product to specific market requirements. Likewise, as processing techniques and cold chain supply routes are diverse, it is imperative that information is attained on how these influence the quality of the product.
Final report
This broad ranging project took a subproject approach to examine several issues that ultimately relate to product yield and quality attributes of farmed Yellowtail Kingfish (YTK) grown in sea cages. Within this project, the performance (survival and growth) of fish stocked into sea cages was assessed in regards to (a) fish size and water temperature at the time of transfer to the sea, and (b) environmental conditions (i.e. water temperature and dissolved oxygen levels) during grow out.