Seafood labelling at National level: strength and weaknesses of the new official Bulgarian list of seafood trade names. 17th Online International Scientific Conference "Traditions and modernity in the veterinary medicine"

The EU seafood labelling system Reg.EU No. 1379/2013 imposes a products’ codified trade name consisting of a commercial designation (CD) and the associated scientific name (SN) and delegates Member States to the draw up and update official lists of trade names accepted in their territory. The first Bulgarian official list (Ordinance No. 4 of 13.01.2006) has been recently abrogated and a new list (Ordinance No. 13 30.11.2021) is currently in force. In the study the correctness and compliance of the new list against the Bulgarian market's trend are presented. The SNs records validity was checked against FAO's reference official information systems. The list's evolution was assessed through a comparison with the repealed list and data available on the National market (Tinacci et al 2018-2020). List description: 81 records are identifiable against the 61 included in the original list with an apparent total increase in the number of species considered, although still below the number of species listed by other EU Member States. Fish category contributes for 86.4% (N=70). A relevant percentage of records (9.9%) still appear obsolete and not valid. List’s compliance to market demand: the analysis highlights the will of the national Legislator to enhance local caught and cultured species largely represented by freshwater species. Nevertheless, the list revision led to the disappearance of 30 SN mainly belonging to imported marine fish species extensively demanded and available at retail. Major issues related to the SN validity and the non-adherence to the market demand highlight the need of a second urgent list revision by merging the two lists produced so far, and including an additional number of species already widely spread and consumed.