S.L. 449.25 Art. 17Cooked crustaceans and molluscanshellfish products.

Crustaceans and molluscan shellfish must be cooked as follows:

(a) any cooking must be followed by rapid cooling. Water used for this purpose must be drinking water or clean seawater. If no other method of preservation is used, cooling must continue until the temperature approaching that of melting ice is reached;

(b) shelling or shucking must be carried out under hygienic conditions avoiding the contamination of the product. Where such operations are done by hand, workers must pay particular attention to the washing of their hands and all working surfaces must be cleaned thoroughly. If machines are used, they must be cleaned at frequent intervals and disinfected after each working day. After shelling or shucking, cooked products must immediately be frozen or kept chilled at a temperature which will preclude the growth of pathogens, and be stored in appropriate premises;

(c) every manufacturer must carry out microbiological checks, according to regulation 10, on his production at regular intervals, both during the manufacturing process and before the crustacean and molluscan shellfish products are cooked in the processing plant, in order to comply with the standards set out in the Fourth Schedule;

(d) sampling programmes must be established by the managerial staff of the processing plant in relation to the nature of the products (whole, shelled or shucked), the temperature, the time of cooking and the risk evaluation;

(e) the programmes referred to in paragraphs (c) and (d) shall contain, in the event of failure to comply with the standards laid down under headings 1 and 2 of the Fourth Schedule, an undertaking -- to notify the Superintendent of the findings made and the action taken with regard to unsatisfactory batches, as well as the measures provided for in the second indent below, - to review the methods of supervising and checking the critical points so as to identify the contamination source, and to carry out analyses more frequently, - not to market for human consumption batches found to be unsatisfactory on account of the discovery of pathogens or where the M value for Staphylococcus provided for under heading 2 of the Fourth Schedule is exceeded.

The method of analysis used must be recorded with the corresponding results.