SafeFish
SafeFish, provides technical advice to support Australia’s seafood trade and market access negotiations and helps to resolve barriers to trade.
SafeFish is primarily funded by the Fisheries Research & Development Corporation (FRDC) on behalf of the Australian Government and is the leading platform in their program for dealing with food safety and trade and market access issues affecting Australian seafood.
Technical Program
The technical program is underpinned by a strategy to identify current and emerging food safety and market access issues, prioritise these issues, and undertake technical work to provide potential solutions to overcome those of highest priority. This is known as the SafeFish prioritisation process, and is used as a robust method of determining the work program.
Current Technical Research
Following the 2021 hazard identification and prioritisation process that was held, the following issues were identified as having the highest priority to the Australian seafood industry. For the 2022-2025 period technical research on the following items will be undertaken to assist in addressing them:
- The impacts from ready-to-eat seafood due to consumer change with a focus on Listeria monocytogenes
- Chemical contaminants
- Vibrio in seafood
- Ciguatera – facilitating the Australian response to a Code of Practice currently being developed through CODEX
- Micro and nano plastics in seafood (watching brief)
Latest Content
The latest collection of SafeFish technical reports, communication outputs, news and articles can be found here.
FAO GLOBEFISH Webinar Series – Aquatic food fraud: what is really on the plate?
Thursday 18 June 2026 10:00–12:00 CEST (1800-2000hrs Melbourne)
Format: Online via Zoom (FREE but you must register)
There is no official estimate of how prevalent fraud is in the $195 billion global fisheries and aquaculture sector, but empirical studies suggest that 20 percent of the trade may be subject to some type of fraud, notably higher than for meat and fruits and vegetables, largely due to the vast diversity of species in the sector. Fish fraud is defined in the report as “a deliberate practice intended to deceive others” and, depending on the type of deceit it can pose risks to biodiversity, human health or economic systems. Beyond economic losses, it can undermine consumer trust, fair competition, public health and sustainability.
As part of the FAO #GLOBEFISH Webinar Series 2026, this upcoming online session will explore how market demand, price incentives, and supply-chain complexity create conditions for fraudulent practices, and what governments, industry, retailers, researchers and standard-setting bodies are doing to strengthen transparency, traceability and authenticity. It is also relevant to consumers to understand what is happening. The webinar will feature: Expert presentations; Live polling; A moderated panel discussion; Audience Q&A. Of interest for stakeholders working across fisheries, aquaculture, seafood trade, food safety and sustainability. Participation is open upon registration:
Register here: https://fao.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3eQiSzc8Tm6dlCh5cjFSiQ#/registration or https://lnkd.in/eY_un56X
If you’ve registered, please complete a short pre-webinar survey to share your perspectives on fraud affecting fisheries and aquaculture products here https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=aMQ6Frir0ESB_dnbFeOvlvhs19BtU_pDqJ_Nqv8t55VURDNPWVA0NVE3RzkwU0szVTFCMEhBVFZVOC4u or https://lnkd.in/e3rjMhan
Australian and New Zealand Marine HAB Network
A new network to facilitate Australian and New Zealand information gathering and sharing on marine harmful algal blooms has been developed. It will promote and disseminate information on training opportunities, conferences, workshops, relevant Australian and international research advances and more. Membership of the network is open to all interested parties. To register your interest in joining the ANZ Marine HAB network please go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SMPPKYB. A capability workshop will also be held on molecular identification of Marine harmful algae in from 1-5 Dec 2025 at UTS.
