Overview
NOM-027-SSA1-1993 was Mexico’s sanitary specification for fresh, refrigerated, and frozen fish. It was published in the Diario Oficial de la Federacion on 3 March 1995 and became mandatory 30 days after publication. It was later cancelled by NOM-242-SSA1-2009, which entered into force on 10 May 2011.
This page exists as a historical citation target for source papers that quote NOM-027-SSA1-1993. For current Mexican fishery-product compliance context, use Norma Oficial Mexicana NOM-242-SSA1-2009, Productos de la pesca frescos, refrigerados, congelados y procesados.
Heavy-metal limits in NOM-027-SSA1-1993
Section 6.4, “Contaminacion por metales pesados,” listed the following maximum limits for the covered fish products:
| Metal | Maximum limit | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Cadmium (Cd) | 0.5 mg/kg | Product as covered by the standard |
| Mercury (Hg), total | 1.0 mg/kg | Product as covered by the standard |
| Mercury as methylmercury | 0.5 mg/kg | Required only when total Hg exceeds the reference level, for lot acceptance/rejection |
| Lead (Pb) | 1.0 mg/kg | Product as covered by the standard |
Relationship to NOM-242-SSA1-2009
The 2011 successor standard NOM-242-SSA1-2009 consolidated Mexican sanitary specifications for fresh, refrigerated, frozen, and processed fishery products. Its transitory provision cancelled NOM-027-SSA1-1993. The current successor rule changed the way the mercury limit is presented for fishery products, using methylmercury categories rather than the older total-Hg plus conditional-MeHg structure.
How this page interacts with HMT&C
This page records a historical Mexican regulatory benchmark used by source literature. It does not set HMT&C certification thresholds and should not be cited as current law after 10 May 2011. Standards math should use this page only when preserving source-era regulatory provenance.
Sources
- Secretaria de Salud. NOM-027-SSA1-1993, Bienes y servicios. Productos de la pesca. Pescados frescos-refrigerados y congelados. Especificaciones sanitarias. Source URL: https://www.salud.gob.mx/unidades/cdi/nom/027ssa13.html
- Diario Oficial de la Federacion. NOM-242-SSA1-2009, Productos y servicios. Productos de la pesca frescos, refrigerados, congelados y procesados. Especificaciones sanitarias y metodos de prueba. Source URL: https://sidofqa.segob.gob.mx/notas/5177531
Verification notes
- Created 2026-05-18 by Codex during P0149 seafood manual-fetch ingest after Rodriguez-Mendivil et al. 2019 cited NOM-027-SSA1-1993 as the Mexican benchmark for fresh-fish Hg, Pb, and Cd comparisons.
- The official Secretaria de Salud HTML page gives the publication heading “03-03-95” and the vigencia clause states that the standard became mandatory 30 days after publication; this page therefore uses 1995-04-02 as the effective date.
- NOM-242-SSA1-2009’s transitory provision states that, upon its entry into force, NOM-027-SSA1-1993 is cancelled. A later 2012 modification notice states that NOM-242 entered into force on 10 May 2011.
Update history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| e317189 | 2026-08-11 | correction | Contamination-profile values revised; 7 sections added; narrative text revised |