The new Italian official list of seafood trade names (annex I of ministerial decree n. 19105 of September the 22nd, 2017): Strengths and weaknesses in the framework of the current complex seafood scenario

Abstract

Species substitution, favoured by the high supply chain complexity and the huge number of marketable species, poses economic and health issues and contribute to stocks exploitation. To face this issue, the current EU Regulation no. 1379/2013 imposes to the Member States to publish a list reporting the official designations, corresponding to species scientific names, accepted within the national territories. In the present study the new Italian list of official seafood commercial designations issued by Ministerial Decree no. 19105 of September the 22 t h, 2017 (Annex I) was analysed to verify the document's compliance to the EU Commission requirements and to check the correctness and validity of the listed items. Moreover, through a comparison with previous national lists from 2002 to date, the list evolution and accuracy were assessed. Finally, the list's correspondence to the Italian market's trend and the species conservation status were evaluated. The analysis highlighted a renewal of the official list, which currently accounts for a total of 1003 records, with a meticulous revision of the taxonomical nomenclature for the scientific name attribution. The Annex I represents a valuable tool for a fair seafood labelling and the recorded items well describe the current consumers' expenditure trend. Nevertheless, the results also highlighted a decrease, by the years, of the list's accuracy in favour of a progressive generalization of trade names. Despite the considerable effort of the Italian legislator for the identification of effective standardization criteria in the attribution of the trade names, the numericity reduction of official commercial designation distances the Italian list from the one name-one fish conception, proposed at international level as a resolutive approach for the traceability in the seafood trade.