In order to assist industry to manage changing market requirements to produce a food-safe and better quality seafood product, the Department of Fisheries created the WA Seafood Quality Management Initiative (SQMI).

		What is the Seafood Quality Management Initiative (SQMI)
		Seafood Quality Management Initiative Activities

Guides to Quality Fish

These codes of practice, handbooks and guides have been developed by the fishing, seafood retail and aquaculture industries and the Department of Fisheries under the SQMI banner to ensure 'best practice' in handling, storage, labelling and transportation of product on-board commercial fishing vessels, in aquaculture production facilities and in retail outlets.

Utilising the practices outlined in these documents, along with completion of the simple template documentation included with them, will help to ensure that the highest degree of freshness and quality of the product is maintained and assist producers in meeting “approved supplier” requirements.

These documents can be dowloaded or viewed online. Hard copies can be obatined by contacting the SQMI Manager.

		Code of Practice for the Harvest and Post Harvest Handling of Live Marron for Food
		A Code of Practice for Handling Fish Caught in the Pilbara Trawl Fishery
		A Code of Practice for Handling Fish Caught in the Northern Demersal Scalefish Fishery
		A Code of Practice for the Western Australian Demersal Gillnet and Longline Fishery
		Guidelines for restaurant owners who hold ‘live seafood' in aquaria
		The Western Australian Quality Finfish Guide
		Guidelines for the Handling of Live Seafood
		Handbook of On-Board Handling of Fresh Fish
		Guidelines for Seafood Retailers
		Seafood Retailers Handbook
		Handbook for On-board Handling of Demersal Gillnet and Longline Catch
		WA Shellfish Quality Assurance Program Operations Manual
		Effective Sanitation For The Seafood Industry
		A Guide to Quality Assurance Systems for the Seafood Industry (Hard copy only)

A number of other sector-specific seafood industry guides are available from Seafood Services Australia .

Information Sheets

There are a number of information sheets available from the SQMI that explain some of the fundamental issues and principles of seafood quality and safety.

No.1		The Model Food Act and the Food Standards Code
No.2		Food Safety Programmes
No.3		Demystifying HACCP
No.4		Seafood and the Food Standards Code
No.5		The Seafood Industry Training Package – What is it?

Please Note: You will require a current version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader to access the PDF version of these documents. The current version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader is available free from here.