The Gallery Proprietor Joey Chambers receives a Seafish Friers' Quality award from Julie MacDonalt of Northern Ireland Seafood

It's a long trip from the depths of the sea to your dinner plate, so how can you be sure your seafood hasn't been spoiled along the way? Well luckily enough you needn't ponder such ideas as our fish is of supreme quality and this is assured by the Northern Ireland Seafood Quality Programme.

This three year programme commenced earlier in the year and is aimed at sustaining and improving the highest standards of freshness, hygiene, and quality within the Northern Ireland Fishing Industry…that means better fish for you!

The programme targets three areas of the industry ensuring standards are kept high every step of the way.

The fisherman is the first link in the chain that leads straight to the tables in the best restaurants and the kitchens of customers all over the country. It is vital at this stage that the seafood is properly handled, cleaned and packaged to ensure a high quality that meets your requirements.

So how is quality assured? Well, customer satisfaction is top of the agenda and in order to meet demands, Quality Advisors, such as Stephen Coffey, actually work aboard vessels throughout Northern Ireland to establish a "Care of the Catch" code of best practice. This drives fishermen to handle your fish with more care, ensuring a higher quality.

The seafood is then moved down the production line to the processors who pack, fillet, smoke etc…the fish. The Seafish Quality Processor Award is used to raise the standards in this sector as it helps to ensure the traceability of fish and seafood products and gives added assurance to the customer that the quality is of the highest possible standard.

Finally seafood is distributed to Fish and Chip Shops where you get the chance to taste the fruits of all the quality advisors' hard work! Standards are kept exceptionally high in this sector due to The Seafish Friers Quality Award which is currently being promoted in Northern Ireland. The award is a way of rewarding and promoting shops that provide good quality and high standards of hygiene, as well as fryers that show a high level of competence.

So the next time you bite into a fresh piece of Cod or a juicy piece of Scampi, rest assured that it's been looked after every step of the way from the ocean to your plate.