Development of Dried Small Pelagic Standards to be adopted by the Malawi Bureau of Standards

Published on: April 29, 2020, Submitted by Megi Cullhaj on: April 21, 2020, Reporting year: 2019

Sustainable Development Goals Contribution

During 2019 Worldfish Malawi developed and submitted dried fish standards to the Malawi Bureau of Standards for approval to promote marketing and consumption of fish.

Farmer in Malawi drying her fish

Despite developing technologies that improve fish post-harvest losses, incomes and food security of fisher folks, there were no standards to promote marketing and consumption of fish.  In liasion with the Malawi Bureau of starndards, Worldfish and FISH research support the development of national standardization of processed fish for evaluating quality of dried fish. Currently the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) is able to certify solar tent drying and solar tent dried fish as safe for human consumption. The certification has allowed fish processors to supply fish at supermarkets. Apart from the certification, supermarkets and other formal markets are attracted to solar tent dried fish because of the longer shelf life. Current research focus on assessing consumer’s preferences of uncooked and cooked solar dried and open dried fish.

Disaggregates for Sphere of Influence

  • 2.2.1 - Reduced biological and chemical hazards in the food system

  • 2.2.2 - Appropriate regulatory environment for food safety

Focus

  • Gender: 1 - Significant objective

  • Youth: 1 - Significant objective

  • Capacity Development & Knowledge Sharing: 1 - Significant objective

Specific Disaggregates for this Policy Indicator

  • Policy/Investment Type: Policy or Strategy

  • Whose policy is fixed? Public Sector

  • Stage of Maturity: Level 1 - Research taken up by next user (decision maker or intermediary)

Acknowledgement

This work was undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH) led by WorldFish. The program is supported by contributors to the CGIAR Trust Fund. Funding support for this work was provided by the University of Malawi for the Gender Inclusive Financing for Scaling up Improved Fish Processing Technologies in Malawi project.

For further information on the project, contact the Project Leader Joseph Nagoli J.Nagoli@cgiar.org

CRPs & Partners

References

Keywords

food standards

Countries

About the author

Joseph Nagoli is at WorldFish - WF.