The official website of the General Administration of Customs of China updated the National Table of Food Not Authorized for Entry in September 2022. The data showed that in September there were 202 batches of unqualified food that were not allowed to enter the country, with a approximate weight of 1,671 tons, all of which had been returned or destroyed in the port in accordance with the law.
This month, there were 75 lots of frozen products not approved to enter, weighing around 818 tons, which represents almost half of the food not approved to enter, up to 49%. By weight, the proportion of frozen aquatic products was higher than that of frozen meat products, at 73% and 27%, respectively. The top five categories were frozen shrimp, frozen chicken products, frozen fish, frozen sea cucumber and frozen pork products.
From a category perspective, frozen shrimp has become a “focus” again. Among the 75 batches of unqualified frozen products, 38 batches are frozen shrimp products weighing 369 tons. From a lot number and weight perspective, frozen shrimp products account for about half.
The largest proportion of unqualified frozen shrimp is vannamei shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei), which weighs 368 tonnes and comes from Ecuador, India and Vietnam respectively. All are major source countries for imported shrimp in China. At present, they are the first, second and third countries of origin of imported shrimp in China. Vannamei shrimp is also the largest category of imported shrimp.
The unqualified shrimp products imported from these three countries are as follows:
Ecuador: 9 batches, 141 tons, were intercepted at the ports of Tianjin and Zhanjiang due to contamination and corruption, infectious subcutaneous and hematopoietic necrosis virus, white spot syndrome virus, etc.
India: 9 batches, 127 tons, were intercepted at the ports of Guangzhou, Nanning, Qingdao and Zhanjiang due to white spot syndrome virus and infectious muscle necrosis virus.
Vietnam: 17 batches, 100 tons, were intercepted at the ports of Nanning, Tianjin and Zhanjiang because oxytetracycline exceeded the limit and the use of phosphoric acid, phosphate and tetracycline as a food additive exceeded the limit.
In short, China is not the only region affected by shrimp disease, and all major vannamei shrimp farming regions in the world cannot get rid of it. Once infectious shrimp diseases occur in shrimp ponds, farmers can only reduce the breeding density, and the output per unit area will decrease accordingly. In addition, if the farm uses drugs excessively, the related substances will also exceed the standard and will not be able to enter the Chinese market smoothly. Attention should be paid to the quality of shrimp products.