Fixing fishy fraud

Deliberate fraud or mislabelling of seafood has become an increasingly important global food security issue. Fraud can occur at any step within the supply chain from initial processing to local restaurant menus.

To overcome this, molecular diagnostic device company InstantLabs and the University of Guelph have entered into an agreement to co-develop a portfolio of DNA-based seafood species identification tests. They hope to have seafood identification test kits available within four months.

Producing results in less than two hours, the test kits will provide definitive proof that seafood is correctly labelled and help eliminate fish fraud.

Recent studies have shown that fraud could be occurring in 25 to 70% of requests for desirable species such as red snapper, wild salmon and Atlantic cod, according to a recent report by Oceana.

“We see the collaboration with InstantLabs as a critical step forward in bringing DNA-based food authentication testing to critical points in the supply chain,” said Robert Hanner, PhD, associate professor at the University of Guelph and leader of a global project assembling a reference library for molecular identification of all fishes. Hanner will collaborate with Primary Investigator Amanda Naaum to develop the DNA testing technology.

The university is recognised for creating DNA barcoding, a technique that can be used to identify any species of plant or animal. The university is a founding member of the International Barcode of Life Project (iBOL).

Under Dr Hanner’s leadership, the University of Guelph team has created the world’s largest database of DNA sequences for seafood using barcodes to simplify testing and improve accuracy. Hanner and his team have worked with many global entities, including the US Food and Drug Administration, to combat seafood fraud. Through the partnership with InstantLabs, Naaum becomes the first individual to translate this research into a commercial product for seafood identification.

The new test kits will give importers, distributors and government customs agents as well as others in the seafood industry the tools to confirm species identification in less than two hours using InstantLab’s easy-to-use Hunter Real-Time PCR system.

An industry-proven technology, the Hunter system is already used globally to screen for food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella, Listeria and E. coli. The portable Hunter system is also being used to detect contamination of food and consumer products with pork or horsemeat.

InstantLabs is represented in Australia by Arrow Scientific