Seafood Certification, Inspections and Audits

QC Tailored for the Seafood Industry

Today’s demanding consumers want fish and seafood with guaranteed quality and freshness, while also paying increasingly more attention to their chosen brand’s sourcing practices. In this market environment, seafood brands and retailers must keep their supply chains in top shape if they want to remain competitive.

QIMA conducts a range of quality control and compliance services to ensure that your seafood products remain safe and preserve their quality from factory to shelf. We offer on-site inspections and audits of your supplier's facilities (including GMP audits, hygiene audits (GHP), and ethical audits), as well as certification to a number of internationally recognized food safety schemes.

Our inspectors are experienced with a wide variety of seafood products, including:

• Fish fillets and portions: salmon, tilapia, monkfish, cod, mackerel, tuna

• Shellfish and mollusk: prawn, scallops, clams, squid

• Crustaceans: shrimp, crab, lobster

Seafood Inspection Expertise

QIMA has extensive expertise with quality control and compliance across every segment of the seafood industry. Our inspectors are highly trained in fish and seafood identification and grading techniques, as well as assessment of fish processing procedures. Using customizable checklists, our experts prepare comprehensive inspection protocols that combine international regulations, the standards of your destination market, and your in-house specifications.

Our sampling procedures strictly follow the guidelines and sampling plans of the World Health Organization Food Code, ensuring that all samples we collect are an objective representation of your shipment. We check a real sample, not a sample your supplier wants you to check.

Solutions for Seafood Safety

• Fish freshness control using the Quality Index Method (QIM) and organoleptic checks (smell, look, texture)

• Grading (A, B or C) based on fish and seafood quality

• Process control with a glazed/deglazed test and drip loss test to prevent food fraud

• Standard size control to ensure uniform production in terms of size and weight

• Defectives check against international regulations, national standards, and your specifications

Seafood Audits

QIMA food supplier audits help you receive an accurate picture of manufacturing and ethical compliance in your food supply chain.

Hygiene audits (GHP) are designed to ensure that your food suppliers’ facilities abide to international regulations on hygiene.

Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) audits help you achieve GMP compliance and secure safety in your seafood supply chain.

Ethical audits investigate your suppliers for social compliance, including working conditions and worker rights, helping you eliminate any instances of labor abuse from your seafood supply chain.

Certification for Fish and Seafood

QIMA, through our subsidiary QIMA/WQS, can audit your processes and systems against the requirements of applicable standards to achieve certification under the following schemes:

• HACCP (Hazard analysis and critical control points)

• GFSI approved schemes:

  • SQF

  • BRC Global Standards

  • IFS