Australia tightens shrimp import requirements for food safety

The Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment has just introduced new import conditions for shrimp which will be in effect starting from July 1. Unprocessed shrimp and shrimp products must be certified by a competent authority that has been preliminarily processed to eliminate the shrimp's digestive tract. These products will continue to be tested for a full 100% of all shipments entering Australia. The reason why Australia introduced this regulation is that under current import conditions do not control the risk of shrimp spores (EHP) to ensure food safety. With this new regulation, Vietnamese shrimp exporters will no longer be able to export raw shrimp as they did before but only to export shrimp with split back. Most shrimp exported to Australia is raw shrimp, so this regulation will affect many businesses exporting to this market.