As a result of enforcement of relatively recent EU legislation governing fish and fish products and import/export, consignments of smoked fish are regularly detained and often destroyed by Port Health Authorities at Gatwick and Heathrow Airports.
Figure 7: Smoked Clarias from Nigeria infested with Dermestes sp.
Figure 8: Consignment detained at Gatwick
Approximately 1 in 4 consignments of air freighted smoked fish are detained by Port Health for some reason at port of entry and 70% of these are destroyed. This is approximately 17.5% of airfreight consignments and equivalent to 20 tonnes of product per annum, with a retail value of £240 000 to £390 000 at current prices. The main reasons why smoked fish consignments are detained are:
Smoked fish is smuggled in among other goods such as vegetables and is therefore undeclared and so has no health certificate. Likewise undeclared dried meat is concealed in consignments of smoked fish.
Packaging is inadequate - re-used computer or TV boxes, in poor condition, newspaper or baskets are used for packing the fish.
Insect infestation.
Establishment number stapled on the box rather than written on.
Health certificates not filled in correctly. For example the establishment number is used as the reference number. The word “various” is used as the scientific name of species rather than the scientific name. The wrong department is shown, the wrong weight or changes have been made. At Gatwick the main reason for detaining smoked fish was due to problems with the health certificate and this mainly applied to Nigerian consignments. The problem has been serious enough to prompt the Port Health to communicate their observations to the UK Food Standards Agency, the appropriate organisation to discuss the problem with the EU or Nigeria directly.
Figure 9: Smoked sole detained at Gatwick airport due to mould growth
During a short visit to Gatwick airport in late June the author saw two consignments from Nigeria that had been detained. One of smoked Clarias sp. was detained due to insect infestation and the other, of smoked sole, because of mould growth (see Figures 7, 8, and 9). The previous day a 1 200 kg consignment of smoked shrimp from Tanzania had been detained because of insect infestation. All these consignments were to be destroyed.
Recent consignments detained by Port Health at Heathrow included the following:
|
Nigeria |
product undeclared and no health certificate (two consignments) |
|
Senegal |
insect infestation |
|
Guinea |
no establishment number, country of origin or health certificate |
|
Cameroon |
insect infestation, health certificate made out for 100 kg where as actual consignment was 200 kg. |
|
Ghana |
undeclared and no health certificate (four consignments) |
|
Mrs S., who imported 600 kg of product from Nigeria for her shop in Brixton, had her fish detained by the port health authority at Heathrow because tipex had been used on the health certificate. Mrs T., another Brixton based trader, borrowed £10 000 and imported foodstuffs including smoked fish from Nigeria into the UK earlier in the year. The goods were detained and Mrs T. lost all her goods and was made bankrupt. |
Due to time limitations, it was not possible to study the accompanied baggage trade in detail. What can be said at this stage however, is that this trade appears to be relatively large, probably encouraged by difficulties in export from authorised plants and the risk of detention of product in the UK.
