Search

The incorrect labeling, as well as the bioaccumulation of heavy metals in seafood, represent a recurring problem worldwide, not only for natural resources but also for the consumers' health. Heavy metals can be accumulated through the food chain and transferred to the final human consumer. Despite its toxicology, arsenic does not have a concentration limit on food, unlike other heavy metals like cadmium, mercury, and lead. Tuna species, with a worldwide distribution and high per capita consumption, represent a well-known toxicological issue caused by heavy metals. In this context, 80 samples of canned tuna were analyzed to check if the information contained in the label was correct and complete. Genetic identification was made by sequencing a fragment of 16S rDNA from 80 samples. For the heavy metal quantification, only those samples with the complete FAO fishing area information on the label were analyzed. Only 29 out of 80 samples presented enough information on the labels for the analysis. Some of the canned tuna commercialized in Spanish markets surpassed the safety standard levels established by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Activities (JECFA) under the consumption rates of 300 g and 482 g per week. However, the carcinogenic risk (CRlim) for arsenic in all cans and all scenarios was higher than the safety levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish market for canned fish is one of the biggest in the world. It is still largely supplied by a robust national industry which has survived globalisation when all other European countries failed to preserve their two-century old industry. What is so special about this relationship between Spanish consumers and canned fish? This research analyses the nature of the demand for canned fish, and particularly canned tuna, a rather inexpensive and storable food product, to show how Spanish households are sensitive to price and income changes. The price and expenditure elasticities are estimated through a time-based Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) model. A Johansen’s multivariate time-series analysis was developed through a vector error correction model, the misspecification tests supporting the use of this model. The empirical analysis found that the Spanish demand for canned fish in Spain is rather price inelastic, whatever the species, but substitutability is found between the different canned fish products. The results also demonstrate that canned tuna over-reacts positively to expenditure changes compared to other fish species, presenting a nature of luxury good compared to other canned fish products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1980s, just before the entry of Spain in the European Union, the Spanish fish canning industry was already important, although it was still well behind the leading countries. Canning companies were small, exports were low and directed to economically vulnerable countries, the product was highly varied and the economies of scale in the industry were small. Forty years later, the Spanish canning industry is a more concentrated industry, with several large companies that have plants in other countries, and which exports a significant part of its production. It is the leader in the European Union and the second largest producer in the world. The existence of a tradition and important capabilities acquired over time, especially in the Galician region, the consolidation of its own tuna fleet and the entry of Spain into the European Union have been factors that made this change possible. • The Spanish fish canning industry had by the 1970s a very long tradition but was in a critical situation. • After an intense transformation, in just two decades Spain became the second largest producer of the world. • Spain's accession to the European Union was one of the main factors that made that transformation possible, although not the only one. • Path dependent capabilities, size of internal market and a parallel development of the Spanish tuna fleet were also important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide an overview of the Spanish fish processing sector in general, and, specifically looking at canned tuna. We study the evolution of the Spanish freezer tuna fleet, shipowning companies and joint ventures in third countries, and the fleet interaction with the canned tuna processing sector. The evolution of canned tuna industry and its market in Spain over time are described and important variables such as production, consumption, imports and exports of canned tuna are presented. The policy measures related to the development of the Spanish tuna industry and the freezer tuna fishing fleet are presented. In spite of the globalisation process, this industry is still one of the most important worldwide and has survived unlike all European countries. Interesting findings are shown about the situation of the sector using several statistics and econometrics techniques to obtain a graph which allow us to understand the interrelationships between its main variables in depth. In conclusion, the canning industry with its production, foreign trade and domestic consumption play a key role in explaining the dynamics of the sector and the high demand of canned tuna causes the expansion of the fleet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable and continued production of enough food to feed the entire world's population is one of the main concerns in the food industry. Spain, and in particular Galicia, which is an eminently fishing region characterised by the consumption of large quantities of fish, both fresh and processed, must face the challenge of shifting its seafood productive fabric towards a circular economy. To achieve this objective, the first task is to demonstrate that circular economy principles allow to reduce the environmental impacts associated with seafood production. In this sense, this study proposes the environmental evaluation of the skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) value chain within a canning industry located in Galicia through the LCA methodology from an attributional perspective, including the valorisation processes for biowaste (edible and inedible by-products). Results indicate that the main crucial subsystems of the value chain are tuna fishing and the canning process, as it was expected considering other similar studies on seafood products. Moreover, this specific case study demonstrates that the multi-product strategy applied to the canning sector is environmentally viable. Thus, although the environmental impacts of the entire system are increased by including further valorisation operations, the environmental loads assigned to the main product (canned tuna) decrease compared to the one-product system by assigning environmental burdens to other value-added products (tuna pâté, fishmeal, and fish oil)., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)