Top Tips To Ensure Safe Transport of Seafood Products

Seafood is in high demand across the country. Of course, if you live in a coastal town or city it should be fairly easy to find freshly caught seafood. But, if you are more rural you’ll need to wait for it to be delivered. At this stage, the supplier and the receiver need to make sure they are doing everything they can to get the seafood to you fresh and safe.

Here are some tips to help ensure the safe transport of seafood:

Keep It Refrigerated

Fish, like any type of meat, will attract bacteria. If the seafood is warm the bacteria can settle and start breeding, potentially causing a harmful infection in anyone consuming the seafood. The best way to prevent this is to keep the seafood cool at all times.

This is hardest to do when you are transporting products across the country and is why it is essential you choose a reputable refrigerated transport service.

A good company doesn’t just put your seafood in a refrigerated truck and send it off. They will have a system for constantly monitoring the temperature of the truck and taking action if it gets near its limits.

Packing Material

You should have refrigerators at your base to keep the fish cool before they are transported. But, a critical part of keeping the fish cool is to consider the packing. In general, this means cleaning the seafood in cold water and then storing them in crushed ice.

Rinsing removes any contaminants, the crushed ice keeps the seafood cool. Of course, you also need a waterproof box to keep the seafood in. This helps if the ice starts to melt and the fish need to stay cool.

By placing them in a box you’ll also find it is easier to carry and stack them, making it simpler for the transportation process.

Check Current Regulations

While keeping the seafood cold is an essential step toward ensuring the products arrive safely and are good to eat, you also need to check the current regulations. These can change and you need to make sure you are complying with the latest rules. This doesn’t just keep your seafood safe, it also ensures you are doing everything correctly to make sure your products are fit for human consumption.

Training

The best way to ensure that the right boxes are used is to design them yourself with your knowledge of the industry. However, you cannot pack every single box, that’s what you have staff for.

To ensure the safe transport of seafood products it is essential to train your staff properly. Make sure all staff are aware of how to gut and clean a fish, which packing boxes they should be using, and the right packing materials to ensure the seafood stays cool while in transit.

When done properly the seafood will arrive at the intended destination and you can be confident it is safe to eat or process in any way you would like to.