National Occupational Standard for Fish & Seafood Primary Processor Complete, Crustaceans Certification in Development
Thank you to Canada’s fish and seafood industry for partnering with FPSC’s Professionalizing the Food and Beverage Industry team led by Tracy Biernacki-Dusza. The National Occupational Standard (NOS) for Fish & Seafood Primary Processor is now complete and available to guide job development and performance for employers. As part of this industry-led NOS process, leaders also identified three areas of specialization for certification development – processing crustaceans, processing fish and processing mollusks.
NOSs detail the related knowledge, skills and abilities of an individual within an organization performing that occupation. In Canada and globally, there are currently no independent recognition schemes for fish and seafood processing industry employees. However, there are many certification schemes for organizations’ facilities and processes related to quality, sustainability, safe harvesting, and food safety (e.g. HACCP, GFSI, BRC), often mandated to be attained and maintained in order to ensure trade/export of products. These certifications often require employers to train their employees on food safety management techniques and systems, but do not recognize an individual’s skills. There are no established recognition programs based on competence for individual fish and seafood processors.
With the completed NOS for Fish & Seafood Primary Processor we can now develop a certification framework for the fish & seafood industry that recognizes employees with the required knowledge and skills to perform the tasks. The results will include:
- Better performance and higher levels of quality assurance and safety
- Establishing a standard to be used in recruitment and selection while lowering training costs
- Allowing the industry to be audit-ready
- Creating an effective culture of recognition and improving the company’s reputation as a result
If you are a fish & seafood industry employer and would like to participate in the upcoming certification development for crustaceans, or if you would like to learn more about FPSC’s flagship initiative, Professionalizing the Food and Beverage Processing Industry, please contact Tracy Biernacki-Dusza for further information.
