On February 19th, the Fourth Session of the 10th Committee of the Zhuhai Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference was held. Barry.Meng, a member of the Zhuhai Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the chairman of Zhuhai Ousensi Sensing Technology Co., LTD., said that Zhuhai can utilize optical non-destructive testing technology to assist in establishing a quality and safety grading system and standardization system for aquatic products. The use of comprehensive and precise testing methods and standards can not only ensure food safety but also guarantee food quality This will further expand the market share of Zhuhai's aquatic products.

Zhuhai is a major maritime and fishery city, with a sea area of 9,348 square kilometers. It is home to the famous Wanshan Fishing Ground in China and is rich in aquatic resources. The "Brief Overview of Zhuhai's Economic Operation in the First Half of 2024" indicates that the overall development of Zhuhai's aquatic product market has been steadily growing. In the first half of the year, the city's fishery output value reached 4.889 billion yuan, and the total output of aquatic products in the city was 172,800 tons.

Through actual visits and investigations, we found that compared with the booming aquatic product market, Zhuhai's testing methods and standards for aquatic products are still relatively conservative and fail to keep up with the growth rate of Zhuhai's aquatic product market share." Barry.Meng said.

First of all, the methods for detecting the body size of fish are traditional. Barry.Meng admitted, "At present, most fish farmers still use the method of sorting by the naked eye to distinguish the size of the fish. Fish that don't look big enough are released back into the pond for continued breeding." This screening method is not only extremely inefficient but also highly subjective and prone to errors.

Barry.Meng further pointed out that the prices of aquatic products in Zhuhai are almost all classified based on their size differences, and no systematic quality inspection standards have been formed. For Zhuhai's characteristic aquatic products such as sea bass and eel, their excellent product quality cannot be directly seen by consumers. Therefore, the high-quality aquatic products in Zhuhai find it difficult to gain a competitive edge over the ordinary ones available on the market.

In addition, in terms of microbiological testing, the fresh products from Zhuhai enter the market mainly through two aspects of testing: the drug residue degree in aquatic products and the water quality of the breeding ground. Both of these tests are at the most basic standards.

For instance, in the detection of drug residue levels, only the prescribed limits for drugs such as enrofloxacin, oxytetracycline, and chloramphenicol are set, which does not fully cover the drugs actually used in the breeding process. All aquatic products can enter the market as long as they meet this minimum testing standard. This kind of low-standard microbial testing often conceals certain food safety risks. Barry.Meng said.

It is worth noting that Zhuhai was designated by the Ministry of Science and Technology as a "comprehensive demonstration administrative region for the Application of key food safety technologies" as early as 2003. Based on this, Barry.Meng suggested that Zhuhai could boldly try to apply more accurate and precise optical non-destructive testing technology to grade and locate aquatic products. By using technologies such as high-resolution image processing, Raman spectroscopy and near-infrared spectroscopy, not only can products be sorted efficiently, but also the quality of aquatic products can be precisely graded.

Barry.Meng believes that for the current industrial inspection technology, sorting the size of products is already a basic operation. By using high-resolution cameras to capture images of aquatic products, analyzing the size and shape of aquatic products through image processing algorithms, and then using auxiliary equipment such as mechanical arms for product sorting, it can replace the manual visual identification of the size of aquatic products, and be more efficient and accurate. The optical sorting system can process hundreds of fish within one minute with an error rate of less than 1%, which is much more efficient than manual sorting.

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) technology can rapidly analyze the content of water, fat, protein and other components in aquatic products by detecting the vibration of chemical bonds in them. It can complete the component analysis of a fish within seconds, with an accuracy rate as high as 95%. Barry.Meng stated that spectral technology can also be applied to the water quality testing of aquaculture products. This is because different microorganisms have unique absorption spectra within specific wavelength ranges. By measuring the degree to which water samples absorb light of different wavelengths, a relationship with the content of microorganisms can be established.

Barry.Meng also suggested that Zhuhai could attach spectral detection labels to the surface of products. In this way, consumers could directly distinguish the quality differences of aquatic products, which would be more conducive to local high-quality aquatic products creating a price difference advantage. Comprehensive and precise testing methods and standards not only ensure food safety but also achieve high food quality, promoting the further expansion of the market share of Zhuhai's aquatic products and facilitating the long-term development of Zhuhai's aquatic products industry.

This article is reprinted from "Southern PLUS