The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are sponsoring a public meeting tomorrow, Feb. 6, to provide information, receive public comments on agenda items and draft U.S. positions to be discussed at the 33rd Session of the Codex Committee on Fish and Fish Products (CCFFP). The 33rd Session will be held Feb. 17-21 in Bergen, Norway.

The public meeting will be held Thursday, Feb. 6, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Wiley Building, Room 1A-001, 5100 Paint Branch Parkway, College Park, Md. 20740.  Documents and agenda items related to the 33rd session of CCFFP will be accessible at the Codex website. To join the public meeting by conference call, dial 1 (888) 844-9904 and use participant code: 512-6092.

During the meeting, the committee, among other matters, will discuss:

• Draft performance criteria for reference and confirmatory methods for marine biotoxins (Section I-8.6 Determination of Biotoxins in the Standard for Live and Raw Bivalve Mollusks)
• Standard for smoked fish, smoke-flavored fish, and smoke-dried fish (Section 4 Food Additives)
• Draft standards for raw, fresh, and quick frozen scallop products
• Proposed food additive provisions in standards for fish and fishery products
• Discussion papers on histamine and nitrogen factors
• Code of practice for fish and fishery products
• Matters referred to the committee by the Codex Alimentarius Commission and other Codex committees
• Matters arising from the work of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) or the World Organization for Animal Health

Hosted by Norway, the CCFFP is responsible for elaborating worldwide standards for fresh, frozen, including quick frozen or otherwise processed fish, crustaceans and mollusk.

For more information about the public meeting, or to submit written comments about the 33rd Session of the CCFFP, contact: Paulo Almeida, U.S. Codex Office, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Room 4861, South Building, Washington, DC 20250; Telephone: (202)205-7760, Fax: (202)720-3157, Email: Paulo.Almeida@fsis.usda.gov.