JEMCO Oyster Quality Programmes

JEMCO farmers take pride in the quality of their growing waters.

We have adopted water quality standards that exceed the requirements of both the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, USFDA and European Union growing area requirements – easy to do when your oyster farms are 5000 kilometres from any heavily populated area.

On The Farm

All oysters are grown, harvested, transported, processed, packed and stored in accordance with the New Zealand Fishing Industry Agreed Implementation Standards (IAIS).

JEMCO farms operate two water-monitoring programmes concurrently. These are:

1. The Sanitation Programme

This involves a comprehensive microbiological testing programme to identify possible harmful organisms (or chemicals).

Naturally occurring marine pathogens, such as Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Vibrio vulnificus also have their occurrence considered ( even though the water temperature during the harvesting season in NZ is not high enough to encourage growth of these organisms ).

2. The Biotoxin Monitoring Programme

This is the leading programme of its kind in the world. Our regular sampling utilises sophisticated phytoplankton monitoring as an "early warning" for the possible presence of toxic phytoplankton.

As an additional quality control measure oyster meat samples are regularly taken and analysed for all the known shellfish toxins.

(It should be noted that there has been no recorded outbreak of either e-coli 0-157 or toxic red tide in New Zealand).

With these comprehensive water quality-monitoring programmes, JEMCO oysters can be purchased and consumed with the highest confidence expected from a quality product.

At The Factory

Every JEMCO New Zealand oyster is processed in a Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry registered and approved factory. These factories are operated and verified under Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Programmes (HACCP).

HACCP is the latest internationally accepted procedure for minimising the risk of possible contamination during food processing. The HACCP program is an extensive system designed to ensure each stage of the oysters' processing is conducted to the highest possible standard.

JEMCO factories are not only fully USFDA and EU approved but also have specific Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare approval for raw consumption (for live, fresh chilled and frozen styles).

As such JEMCO product is accepted all over the world.