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Zoo News
Certified fish isn’t fishy, as RZSS scientist confirms
16 July 2010 - A scientist from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland is using forensic techniques to check that the sustainable fish we’re being sold is what it claims to be.
Using mitochondrial DNA markers from a number of different genes, Dr Rob Ogden and his team employed DNA sequencing and species specific SNP markers to identify which species of fish were in 240 random samples from supermarkets, restaurant and markets in the UK, US, Japan and Germany.
All of the samples showed that they came from the fish labelled on the pack and none of the products was mislabelled.
All products carried the NGO’s ecolabel meaning that all of the fish were from Marine Stewardship Council certified fisheries and have been handled by companies certified to the ‘Chain of Custody’ traceability certification. So Ogden and his team were looking for evidence that fish had been switched either for another species (such as selling Atlantic salmon as the more expensive wild Alaska Salmon) or fish that claimed to be from a certified fishery but had actually been caught in a non-certified fishery in a different region.
Read the article that appears in the latest issue of the New Scientist: Fish Certification Scheme Shows its True Colours.
For all media enquiries relating to this research and RZSS research programme,
please contact Clara Govier on 0131 314 0312
If you have a specific research enquiry, please contact Dr Rob Ogden on 0131 314 0317 or rogden@rzss.org.uk
Fish image by French Duck