The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) has this week issued Industry Advice Notice (IAN) 2018-41 – Horticulture Exports Program – Interim control measures for the export of fresh strawberries from Australia, in response to reported detections of metal contaminants in the fruit.
From 9am AEST on Wednesday, 19 September 2018, a nil tolerance of metal contaminants in fresh strawberries is being enforced by DAWR to mitigate the risk of fruit containing needles entering the export supply chain. The new interim measure applies to fresh strawberries for all export markets, including markets that do not require a phytosanitary certificate.
All requests for export permits (RFPs) that include fresh strawberries now require authorisation by the department through EXDOC. Visual inspection alone is not an acceptable measure – interim control measures can include evidence of metal screening (metal detectors/x-ray) at end-point or on-farm metal screening where product security has been maintained post screening.
Exporters are responsible for providing evidence to the department, that consignments are free from metal contaminants. Records are required to be kept by the exporter for auditing purposes for 2 years. The Manual of Importing Country Requirements (MICoR) cases will be updated to reflect these changes. There is no change to existing importing country requirements.
Exporter Responsibilities
All RFPs that include fresh strawberries now require authorisation by the department through EXDOC, this includes non-phytosanitary certificate markets.
For consignments of fresh strawberries being exported to non-phytosanitary certificate markets: Singapore (SG), Hong Kong (HK) and Maldives (MV), a new EXDOC Product Code for fresh strawberries “SIE†has been created. The EXDOC Product Code, “STWâ€, for all other markets is unchanged.
When requesting RFP authorisation from DAWR, exporters must provide evidence that the consignment is free from metal contaminants.
