Dar seafood ppp standard

Applying the Risk Ranking Methodology

In completing the Risk Ranking of Seafood in Australia, FSANZ did not apply the ranking matrix to individual species of seafood or to very small fisheries such as pearl oyster meat. The consequences of the very low per capita consumption of such products inevitably drives the likelihood rating to ‘unlikely’.

Commodity	Hazard/environment	Severity	Likelihood	Relative risk ranking^1	Current risk management
Pearl oysters meat	Algal biotoxins (ASP, PSP)	Severe	Unlikely	Medium	FSC Ch 1^2

1. Risk ranking reflects current practice for that commodity/seafood sector. The risk ranking is based on the severity of the hazard and an estimate of the likelihood of illness that takes into account various factors, including current risk management practices.

2. Current risk management involves maximum level standards for the four major classes of algal toxins in the Food Standards Code.

Given the relatively small size of the industry, anecdotally of the order of 5-10 tonnes per year, there is only a very low level of consumption of pearl oyster meat when considered across the whole Australian population. The likelihood of illness rating for the whole population is thus ‘unlikely’ and the risk ranking is ‘Medium’.
There are a number of sources of uncertainty impacting upon this risk ranking. The critical uncertainty surrounds the fate of any toxin ingested by the oyster. There are no data specific to pearl oysters, and extrapolation from data relating to distantly-related bivalves such as scallops was considered unsound given the large inter-species variation in the ability of bivalves to accumulate and detoxify algal biotoxins. Other sources of uncertainty include the size of the consuming population and the likelihood of toxic algae being present in the harvest waters. These sources of uncertainty affect the ‘likelihood of illness’ rating in the risk ranking.
The risk ranking model is difficult to apply in situations of such high uncertainty. The uncertainty regarding the presence of algal toxin in pearl oyster meat means that if the risk ranking was applied to the subset of the population that consumes the product, the likelihood of illness rating could range from unlikely to likely, and this would impact on the final risk ranking. Specific data on the bioaccumulation of biotoxins in pearl oysters would resolve the uncertainty in the ranking.