Status of shellfish production and relaying areas

The sanitary status of a shellfish production or relaying area corresponds to the operating conditions permitted at a given time, in terms of authorization to harvest and market shellfish from this area and with the objective of protecting consumer health.
This website provides information on the status of the areas but only the corresponding prefectoral decrees are authentic.

This site displays the following statuses for professionally exploited shellfish production or relaying areas:

• No alert in progress : no sanitary restriction measures in progress related to bacteriological, toxic or chemical contamination. The possibility of harvesting and marketing shellfish remains conditional on the classification of the area (A/B/C/NC according to the groups concerned) and on any operating rules in force (e.g. management of the resource);
• Ongoing alert : presence of bacteriological, toxin or chemical contamination that has led to the adoption of sanitary management measures (prefectoral decree) limiting or prohibiting the harvesting and marketing for consumption of all or part of the shellfish in the area.

Note : The status displayed provides information on the existence or not of specific management measures in an area, in relation to a contaminating event, without prejudice to the classifications that are already attributed to the groups in this area and the harvesting and marketing rules that must be applied to them. Thus, in an "open" area (i.e. without any specific restriction measures), each group of this area may have a different classification (A, B, C or NC) with different or even impossible marketing possibilities.

Restriction or prohibition measures are taken by decision of the Prefect (prefectural decree) when the routine monitoring analyses of shellfish carried out by Ifremer are unfavorable, and the consumption of shellfish from the Page Actualités Statuts poses a risk to the consumer.
The risk may be of a :

• microbiological: presence of E. coli levels in shellfish above the regulatory thresholds for classification of the areas concerned, presence of viruses ...
• phycotoxic: presence in shellfish of lipophilic, amnesiac or paralyzing toxins.
• chemical: exceeding the regulatory thresholds in the shellfish, local pollution...

More generally, any situation where human health is endangered can lead to administrative management measures.
The prefectural decree specifies the area(s) concerned, the species concerned, the reason and the date of harvesting from which marketing is prohibited or limited (this date generally corresponds to the date of the sampling that led to the unfavorable results). Measures to withdraw products from the market or to recall them from consumers are generally implemented.

The total or partial lifting of the measures is taken when the results of control analyses show a return to a favorable sanitary situation. As a general rule, it is required to obtain two consecutive favorable results at one week interval. The lifting of the measures is decided by the Prefect through a prefectoral decree.

• Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 laying down specific hygiene rules for food of animal origin
• Commission executive regulation (EU) 2019/627 of 15 March 2019 laying down specific rules for the organization of official controls on products of animal origin intended for human consumption
• Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 of 19 December 2006 setting maximum levels for certain contaminants in foodstuffs.