Harvest: Food Safety Regulations | Annual Operations: Spring Courses

Lesson 1 Preparing for Harvest

Food Safety Regulations

If you are planning to sell seaweed for human consumption, it is essential to incorporate food safety considerations into your harvest and post-harvest processing procedures. The goal of food safety is to protect public health by making sure products sold as food are safe for human consumption. This is done by identifying potential hazards associated with food and food processing, and by implementing controls to prevent, reduce, or eliminate the risks associated with those hazards.

There are two categories of food safety hazards:

Species-related hazards, unique to seaweed and shellfish. These may be due to the water they are raised in, their feeding habits, or other unique characteristics.
Process-related hazards, associated with methods of storage, distribution, processing, and packaging of food, regardless of the particular type of food.

*If you plan on processing any of your kelp, make sure you know the food safety regulations in your state.*

Definition

Food Safety Hazard

A biological, chemical, or physical property that may cause food to be unsafe for human consumption.

Regulatory Landscape

Food safety is regulated by federal, state, and local government agencies. Because seaweed farming is a relatively new industry in the USA, federal guidance is extremely limited. Therefore, in most cases, state requirements will be more stringent, or at least more specific, than federal requirements. State and local requirements vary widely.

In 2011, the U.S. Congress passed a comprehensive bill called the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). According to a Sea Grant webinar held in August 2020, seaweed will likely fall under the Preventive Controls regulations of FSMA. Under these regulations, fresh seaweed is not treated as “produce” or even a “plant”: it is a raw agricultural commodity. This means that it is not considered “food” until it is subjected to processing or manufacturing processes such as cutting or freezing.

Although food products are regulated on the federal level by the FDA and the USDA, local and state health departments are the backbone of the nation’s food safety system, with primary responsibility for illness surveillance, response to outbreaks, and regulation of food safety in restaurants, grocery stores, and many food processing plants across America. State or local regulations may specify where food processing operations should be located, constructed, and maintained. You may need to obtain permits or licenses from state or local authorities or get certified (through an organization like ServSafe) in safe food handling practices. Some states have historically required HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) plans for seaweed processing – a food safety monitoring system – but are now changing regulations. We strongly recommend reaching out to your local Board of Health for guidance and support as you develop your food safety plans. This will ensure that there are no surprise expenses or procedural requirements and that you have the full support of local officials as you grow your business.

Important Note

Over the winter, you should contact your local health officials (at your town and state level,) and your state department of aquaculture and/or agriculture to ask what food safety requirements apply to your business. This is a rapidly changing landscape, and while we have done our best to provide an overview of food safety considerations, GreenWave is not an expert in food safety. Always defer to the guidance of your state and local officials.

Guidance for Seaweed Processing

While federal agencies have yet to issue guidance on seaweed-specific hazards, in January 2020 the Connecticut Sea Grant, in partnership with the Connecticut Department of Agriculture, developed A Guide to Understanding and Controlling Potential Food Safety Hazards, and in 2021, Alaska Sea Grant published Seaweed Handling and Processing Guidelines for Alaska. These guides provide recommendations for food safety practices to minimize biological, chemical, and physical hazards associated with the production, storing, handling, processing, and transportation of kelp. Although these are state-specific guides, much of the content is relevant to farmers in other geographies and may be a useful starting point for those operating in states with less formal guidance.

We also recommend getting in touch with your local Sea Grant Program, as well as subscribing to updates from the National Sea Grant Law Center to stay abreast of changes to regulations pertaining to seaweed cultivation and processing.