Christmas prawns sales soar as experts warn how to keep seafood safe to eat
Seafood is a key part of an Aussie Christmas lunch but poor handling can make you and your guests ill.
As Aussies flock to seafood stores around the country to prepare for a Christmas Day feast, we are being warned how to keep our ocean delicacies safe, and not risk the chance of succumbing to any holiday food poisoning.
Thousands of people have been pouring through Sydney Fish Market on Christmas Eve as the popular institution rounds off 36 hours of non-stop trading.
Adam Mourad, Chief Commercial Officer at Sydney Fish Market, told Yahoo News it’s been a bumper season for seafood due to favourable conditions, and he expects sales to be at near record levels.
120 tonnes of prawns to be sold at Sydney Fish Market
"Over this 36-hour marathon we expect to sell 120-tonnes of prawns which equates to 55 kilos per minute, it’s quite phenomenal, and we’ll sell 70,000 dozen oysters," Mourad said.
Once you buy your juicy Aussie prawns, fish or oysters, you want to keep it all cool and get it home promptly. Seafood should spend as little time as possible at high temperatures to prevent it from going off.
“Ideally you want to get it home within a few hours, and the main thing you want to do is keep it cool, in eskies, or people bring ice packs as well just to keep temperatures low during transport,” Mourad said. People need to be careful during these warm summer days, he said, not to leave seafood lying in a hot car.
“Unless you are sitting in car that is 40 degrees on the inside for a number of hours, most people will be OK,” he added.
How to avoid a dodgy Christmas prawn
UNSW Associate Professor and food microbiology expert Julian Cox said seafood has to be taken home immediately.
“Don’t just stick them in the back of your car and think, ‘Oh, I just forgot something else’, and do some more shopping,” Cox said.
“Maybe make them the last item you purchase. Get them into a cold, insulated container with ice bricks to keep them as cold as possible.”
Cox said an alternative is to buy prawns and some other items snap frozen, but they have to be consumed “quicky after thawing”.
Poorly handled seafood can cause problems, and it contributes to 4.68 million cases of food poisoning. Cox shared advice on how to spot a dodgy prawn, fish that has gone off, or suspicious oysters:
Bad prawns go grey, slimy and spotty
Unshucked oysters and mussels should be firmly closed
If something smells bad it probably is
Avoid top-level predatory fish during warmer months
2024 Christmas proves a great seafood season
But Mourad assured seafood shoppers that the quality of the produce is high this Christmas.
"There is a lot more volume of supply around, and availability of key species...we've had favourable conditions lately... and it's lined up quite well this year."
For the popular Sydney rock oysters, supply is the best its been for 10 years, Mourad said. Past years have been hampered by heavy rainfall, bushfires and Covid. Prawns are in plentiful supply coming from Queensland and northern NSW.
New seafood trends for 2024 Christmas include people buying up whole fish to cook up for their friends and families including snapper, barramundi and salmon.
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