Handling Food Safety Issues in Paradise: Part 3—Oceania

Capitalizing on these tariff benefits, StarKist Co., Pittsburgh, Penn., established a tuna processing plant on American Samoa in 1963 in the village of Pago Pago, the capital. With a staff of some 2,200 employees, the 329,000-feet² plant currently processes, on average, 430 metric tons of frozen round fish per day on 13 canning lines and three pouch lines, according to David Calvin, StarKist’s director of quality and safety.

While a number of other tuna companies previously had a presence in American Samoa over the years, as of December 2016, StarKist is now the only one.

Calvin is quick to mention what he considers the strengths of the company’s operation in American Samoa. “For starters, we have a good relationship with our vessel owners (fish suppliers),” Calvin begins. “StarKist contracts from 10 U.S. flagged purse seiners for our light meat tuna supply and 13 U.S. long liners for our Albacore supply, from whom we receive only the more desirable whole round frozen fish, rather than just frozen loins. Another plus for us is our strong internal quality systems audit program. And we are very proud of our continuous training program which covers minimizing food safety risks, understanding regulatory requirements, and implementing protocols for continuous improvement.”

Food safety for StarKist starts with the fishing vessels, Calvin says. “Insuring that you know your suppliers and their harvesting practices and chilling/freezing capabilities is very important,” he points out. “We contract with vessel owners who have state of the art refrigeration systems for chilling and freezing the harvested wild caught tuna.”

For the canned tuna processing industry, including StarKist, tuna is usually frozen whole round on board of the fishing vessel immediately after catching, at 10 degrees Fahrenheit, without any change to its natural form.

Skinless and boneless raw tuna meat, which has been cut by whole loins and frozen prior to distribution, is another form many processors within the canned tuna industry are procuring from their suppliers.

“Many canners are processing frozen tuna loins from many different suppliers,” Calvin elaborates. “They do not process whole round frozen fish. The second cycle of freezing and thawing of tuna loins reduces the quality of the tuna and introduces a significant risk for histamine control.”

Calvin explains that, for canners working with loins only, the first cycle is chilling and freezing the fish on the vessels. The second cycle is freezing the skinless, boneless, cooked loins which have been vacuum packed in plastic bags.

“At StarKist, the frozen fish are received and stored until processed,” Calvin relates. “The processing involves thawing, evisceration, pre-cooking, cooling to less than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, skinning, deboning, and canning. Freezing the tuna twice is detrimental to the quality of the fish.”

Scombrotoxin (histamine) poisoning is among the most common toxicities related to scombrotoxin-forming fish species ingestion, constituting almost 40 percent of all seafood-related food-borne illnesses reported to the CDC, according to Birkun et al (2016), citing Gould et al (2013). Scombrotoxin poisoning results from the consumption of inadequately handled and improperly refrigerated fish. It resembles an allergic reaction but is actually caused by bacterially-generated histidine enzyme in the fish’s tissues, as further reported by Birkun et al (2016), crediting Feng et al (2016).

Because American Samoa is a U.S. Territory, the StarKist tuna plant is regulated by the FDA, Calvin points out. “As a result, StarKist’s food safety risks are managed by implementing a robust Seafood HACCP program, which includes managing food safety risks from handling fish on the vessels to processing fish in its primary container,” he elaborates. “Histamine control is a critical control point in the tuna Seafood HACCP plans.”

Calvin says food safety issues impacting the Pacific Islands region are different than the food safety issues impacting the American Samoa StarKist plant, specifically because of StarKist’s FDA oversight.