Standard and Regulation

Import Regulations and Standards for fishery products : JAPAN

Import Control Measures
The laws that control imports in Japan include:
• Food Sanitation Law
• Law concerning Standardization and Proper Labeling of Agricultural and Forestry Products controlled by Japanese Agricultural Standards, JAS.

Import Control Method
• Imported products are remained in bonded warehouse. After inspections by Public Health Department officials, certificates will be issued for customs procedures follow. This process usually takes 6-10 days to finish. Product failed to pass inspections will be returned to its country of origin.In extreme cases, products will be destroyed once, for example, they are contaminated by a fatal diseases.
• In addition to tests and inspections at Customs, local public health officials draw samples from retail store shelves for further testing on a regular basis. They are authorized to recall products from retail outlets once the test result is proved to be fatal.

Current Situations
Japan has developed and improved systems in food safety and quality by introducing Pre-Certification System*. Besides of sharing many common characteristics with HACCP, this system mainly focuses on product hygiene.
*Also applied on processed food.

Standard for Fishery Products JAPAN

• The Japanese Government Bacteriology Standard and The Tokyo Metropolitan Governmental Bacteriological Guidelines for Frozen Foods.
• Frozen Foods mean the producted or processed foods and fresh fillets or stripped fish, or shellfish which are frozen and packaged.
• This standard does not apply to meat products, whale meat product, fish

Source: Thai Frozen Food Association