Specious Species: Fight against Seafood Fraud Enlists DNA Testing
Escolar masquerading as white tuna. Flounder passing for Vietnamese catfish. Pricey baby cod replaced with lesser quality hake instead. Once fish is filleted and skinned, it can be difficult to distinguish, as a Boston Globe investigative report found after testing 183 pieces of fish and finding that 87 were mislabeled. This type of fraud has long vexed the seafood industry , especially for popular species such as red snapper, wild salmon and Atlantic cod, which could be mislabeled as much as 70 percent of the time. But all this fishy business could soon change.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, often criticized for less-than-rigorous inspection and enforcement efforts when it comes to seafood fraud, is rolling out new DNA-sequencing equipment in nine of its major laboratories across the country in a push to squelch this type of substitution. Officials say they are targeting cod, grouper, snapper,...