Research and analysis

R140 – Identifying seafood species

Published 3 August 2020

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have reported that there is an increasing trend in species substitution and mislabelling globally. A global study published in 2016 found that fish mislabelling happened at every stage of the fish marketing chain Oceana, 2016 and that on average 20% of all fish samples tested were mislabelled.

In the UK a 2013 study found 7.4% of fish sold as cod was actually not cod, but cheaper species of fish such as pollock, haddock, whiting, cobbler and Vietnamese pangasius Miller et al. 2011 This issue appears in the media periodically.

The UK Government is committed to enabling and ensuring sustainable fishing and this includes using regulation and providing assurance through the MMO’s management activity. Detail on this commitment will be in the upcoming fisheries legislation that replaces the EU legislation which has been governing fisheries management. The MMO is therefore contributing to our understanding of how to apply research in practice to identify seafood species.

DNA analysis, referred to as barcoding, is now a well-established method for authenticity testing of fish species. Initially developed by Hebert et al. (2003), it involves the identification of fish species by analysing short nucleotide sequences and comparing the results with reference sequences in online public databases. The gene region which is most frequently used as the standard barcode for fish is the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) region.

Shokralla et al. (2015) successfully applied a DNA minibarcoding system for the identification of processed fishery products. The versatility of this system was recently demonstrated in a study that differentiated between species of fish used in the manufacture of surimi from five different countries.

Online genetic databases available include: * US Food and Drug Administration Reference Standard Sequence Library for Seafood Identification * US National Center for Biotechnology Information GenBank * International Barcode of Life Project

Additionally infrared spectroscopy has been used to authenticate fish fillets in Alamprese and Casiraghi 2015.

0.1 MMO use

Improved evidence and ways of working from this requirement will help the MMO deliver its strategic ambitions as outlined in the MMO Story. The MMO will work to enable sustainable fishing opportunities while also protecting marine wildlife. This will in turn contribute towards delivering the vision of Defra’s 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment for the next generation including by ensuring fish stocks are exploited sustainably.

Compliance – tools to assist in identifying the species of seafood will aid the MMO in carrying out compliance activities and help ensure sustainable fish stocks.

Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IUU) Team – Under the Common Fisheries Policy (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 the IUU team is responsible for ensuring seafood imports into the UK have been caught legally through correct accompanying Catch Certificates, tools to assist in identifying the species of seafood will aid the MMO in carrying out checks on these imports.

0.2 External interest

IFCAs, Food Standards Agency, Defra.

1. Aims and objectives

1.1 Aim

To increase our understanding of what is possible from the use of species identification techniques and how they could be applied operationally by the MMO.

1.2 Objectives

The objectives to deliver this requirement include to:

• investigate methodologies to establish the species of seafood
• create protocols for MMO to operationally identify the species of seafood

2. Existing evidence

2.1 MMO

In late 2019 the MMO worked with the University of Liverpool John Moores to demonstrate the use of portable DNA device for species identification details are here. This used the Fastfish-ID methodology - a targeted florescent marker approach significantly quicker than full barcoding in the laboratory.

2.2 Academic

Other recent papers include: As referenced in MMO1191 DNA barcoding use in the UK seafood market was demonstrated by Griffiths et al. (2013), who showed a 100% assay success rate and a 100% species identification. Jiang et al. (2020) developed a new method that combines DNA barcoding and the restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (RAD-Seq) approach for the identification of cod products. Helgoe et al. (2020) found 6.2% mislabelling of cod based on 546 samples across Spain

2.3 Other

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation – Overview of food fraud in the fisheries sector (2018).

3. Associated evidence requirements

R129 - Validating the method of capture of fish R131 - Validating the origin of capture

4. Further details

For more information or to add further research to the existing evidence list please email evidence@marinemanagement.org.uk