SAN FRANSISCO — August 23, 2012 — The braised chunk of fish labeled "Local Halibut Filet" at a posh San Francisco restaurant where a group of food sleuths were eating looked appetizing, but the first two bites were forked into a little plastic container filled with a preservative salt concoction.
Later that day, Geoff Shester, California program director for the nonprofit group Oceana, would send the preserved morsels, along with more than 30 other samples taken from a variety of San Francisco restaurants, to a laboratory for DNA testing.
The idea, he said, is to find out whether the halibut – plus the sand dabs, Pacific snapper, wild sturgeon and other fish sold at local restaurants – was actually what the menu said it was and determine if, as advertised, the seafood was really wild and local or if it was shipped from a fish farm.
It is now possible to determine exactly what species is being served at the local fish shack, thanks to recent advances in genetic sequencing. Oceana, a group dedicated to preserving the ocean ecosystem, is testing fish nationwide to find out whether seafood fraud is as widespread as some people think it is.
"There is a huge demand now for sustainable seafood, so we need mechanisms to reward and create market incentives for sustainable fishing that take into consideration the health of the ocean," Shester said.
"Providing a marketplace where consumers pay more for products they know are sustainable is the only way to create incentives for responsible, sustainable practices," Shester said. "The rug gets pulled out from under the whole thing if you aren't getting what you think you are getting."
The problem is that, in many cases, there is no way for the consumer to know whether the fish is what the restaurant, fish market or grocery store claims it is.
Shester said that could change as testing becomes more widespread. New technology has made it easier to detect fraudulent fish. The genetic tests his group is conducting cost $20 to $200 apiece, depending on a sample's purity – lemon sauces are particularly problematic.
Misbranding food for financial gain is illegal under state and federal law. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration publishes a guide of acceptable market names for certain fish species, but the laws can be complicated. The agency, for instance, lists 14 species that can be labeled "tuna."
Oceana has thus far found seafood mislabeling everywhere it has done testing, including Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and Monterey. The group hopes to test fish platters in at least six coastal cities around the country.
The DNA-testing campaign, in which dozens of volunteers are provided testing kits with instructions and monitoring sheets, created an uproar when the early results came out. In South Florida, Shester said, results showed that 31 percent of the fish tested at restaurants and markets was mislabeled.
In Los Angeles, 55 percent, and in Boston, 48 percent of the fish sold was not what it was touted to be, he said.
Read the full story in the San Fransisco Chronicle