Title: A Manual for Training Staff in Ugandan Fish Processing Plants on Hygiene, Sanitation and the Application of HACCP Principles.

This manual is intended for use in the training of production staff in fish processing companies in Uganda. The companies are required to implement Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) quality control system in accordance with the Uganda fish quality assurance rules of 1998. The rules are harmonised with the European Union (EU) rules regarding the handling of fish and fisheries products on land and their implementation is a pre-requisite for export to EU markets.

The manual is in three sections:
Section A
Guidelines for compliance with the regulatory requirements on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). Emphasis is put on the training requirements of personnel in personal hygiene practices, clean up procedures, monitoring and control. This section targets the workers in the production line.

Section B
Guidelines to the application of HACCP principles to the processing of Nile perch products in a typical Ugandan fish-processing factory. A generic HACCP model plan is made for the management of the safety of fresh and frozen Nile perch fillets. This section is applicable to all the production staff as per the training needs identified at the end of this section.

Section C
Reference materials:
1) Requirements of the Ugandan regulations on GMP
2) Guidelines to monitoring and controlling essential areas of a sanitation program
3) An overview of the seafood hazards, biological, chemical, and physical

Five aspects of each hazard are considered: General description (occurrence in nature, symptoms), epidemiology, risk assessment, disease control measures and application to the Nile perch processing. The information in this section is for the supervisory staffs and management in the plant. These are included as appendices to the manual.