Tuna exporters push bid for lifting of 9-yr Japan ban

Filpino exporters of smoked tuna will again present to Japanese quarantine and health authorities an independent study that proves this method is safe, in a bid to lift the nine-year ban on the product.

"This issue needs to be resolved and the Japanese government has to justify why they are keeping out our exports despite several testimonies and evidences that show that smoked tuna does not pose health risks to humans," said Dick Alves, who represents the Fresh Frozen Seafood Association of the Philippines (FFSAP) based in Gen. Santos City in Mindanao.

Alves said Japan’s Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) or Kouseisho has since 1997 imposed a regulation prohibiting the production, sale and importation of carbon monoxide (CO)-filtered smoked processed tuna, hamachi and tilapia products in Japan. It has repeatedly refused to resolve the issue but at the same time uses the same method for its tuna exports to the United States.

DHW said its basis for the ban was premised on the unacceptability of the so-called "A Method", which identified the borderline 200 to 500 ug/kg as the level of allowable CO residue in smoked tuna, hamachi and tilapia products.

However, the "A Method"was refuted by Japan’s own Toyama University which reported that such method is highly unreliable and that the data presented by Kouseisho in support of its standards were not properly sampled.

The Toyama report argued that many smoked products, widely used in Japan, like the smoked ham and katsuobushi, whose CO value is in the several thousands level (ug/kg), contained much higher CO residues than the standard Kouseisho has set for tuna, tilapia and hamachi.

The same study showed that ordinary smoke is only four percent CO, which is much lower than that found in the smoke used to process these tuna and tilapia products

"The length of exposure is many times longer in traditional smoke. In the smoking process used on these tuna and tilapia products, exposure to the smoke is several times shorter than that practiced in traditional smoking processes. The criteria for defining which is more desirable and undesirable than the other is, therefore, not clear, especially if it is on the basis of exposure of the product to CO alone. Ham, bacon, and many traditionally-smoked Japanese foods actually have very high CO residues. It is also a known fact that many commercially used traditional smoking machines generate smoke with CO levels higher than that of the smoked used in the frozen smoked tuna process," the study stated.

The DHW said that the color of frozen smoked tuna, tilapia and hamachi do not change (to brown) after thawing and de-packing, and thus, deceiving consumers about its freshness and quality.