Tuna labels matter in Europe: Mislabelling rates in different tuna products

Tuna fisheries and processing represent economic activities of paramount importance around the world. Most of these products are traded for human consumption and in general are highly demanded commodities. However, not all tuna products achieve the same market price, some consumers are willing to pay a huge amount of money for certain species (i.e. Japanese market for Bluefin tuna) while other species are rather affordable (i.e. Skipjack tuna), therefore mislabelling has been observed frequently. We collected and analysed 545 tuna samples in six European countries, including fresh, frozen and canned products, and we have investigated whether or not these products were correctly labelled under European and national legislations. We found an overall mislabelling rate of 6.79%; in particular, 6.70% of the fresh and frozen tuna products and 7.84% of canned tuna were mislabelled, and only in the case of fresh and frozen tuna samples significant differences among countries were found. Mislabelling rates for Atlantic Bluefin tuna labelled products were very high, ranging from 50 up to 100%. In general, mislabelling was higher when specific names were included in the labels. The “tuna” umbrella term is a very popular one with consumers, but also one that remains vulnerable to ambiguity, hampering efforts towards market transparency and with potential negative consequences to the adequate management of tuna species stocks

Labelfish – towards a universal methodology to combat seafood fraud

44th WEFTA meeting, 9-11 June 2014, Bilbao (Spain)Fraud refers to deliberate actions intended for the misleading of consumers in different ways. In the case of seafood, most of the time the term fraud involves the substitution of valuable species by others of lower price, therefore meaning an economic loss for consumers, but also mislabelling can hide other malpractices such as illegal capture procedures. Traceability of fish and seafood is mandatory since 2005 within the EU. Full implementation requires an adequate management of information and also the availability of techniques, which allow the verification of the information transmitted. These are essential tools to combat food fraud, however recent cases have shown that although legislation and techniques are available there are still some crisis related with food fraud which merit a deep evaluation and analysis of the problem . LABELFISH is a project funded by the Atlantic Area Programme and includes participants of six countries in Europe, mainly from the Atlantic area, which are characterized by an intense economic and social relationship with marine resources. One of the main aims of LABELFISH is the establishment of a network of laboratories and national control bodies with experience and interest in seafood labelling and traceability. The objectives include the level of implementation of traceability schemes in most important European seafood value chains, the analysis and detection of possible examples of seafood fraud across Europe, the consumers perception about seafood labelling, the current ethodologies used for controlling the veracity of seafood labels, and how to propose harmonized methodologies for the adequate control of seafood labelling in the European Union. This talk will focus on the Labelfish aspects related with the harmonization of fish species identification methodologies in the context of LABELFISHN

Primers and polymerase chain reaction conditions for DNA barcoding teleost fish based on the mitochondrial cytochrome b and nuclear rhodopsin genes

This report describes a set of 21 polymerase chain reaction primers and amplification conditions developed to barcode practically any teleost fish species according to their mitochondrial cytochrome b and nuclear rhodopsin gene sequences. The method was successfully tested in more than 200 marine fish species comprising the main Actinopterygii family groups. When used in phylogenetic analyses, its combination of two genes with different evolutionary rates serves to identify fish at the species level. We provide a flow diagram indicating our validated polymerase chain reaction amplification conditions for barcoding and species identification applications as well as population structure or haplotyping analyses, adaptable to high-throughput analyse

Primers and polymerase chain reaction conditions for DNA barcoding teleost fish based on the mitochondrial cytochrome b and nuclear rhodopsin genes

This report describes a set of 21 polymerase chain reaction primers and amplification conditions developed to barcode practically any teleost fish species according to their mitochondrial cytochrome b and nuclear rhodopsin gene sequences. The method was successfully tested in more than 200 marine fish species comprising the main Actinopterygii family groups. When used in phylogenetic analyses, its combination of two genes with different evolutionary rates serves to identify fish at the species level. We provide a flow diagram indicating our validated polymerase chain reaction amplification conditions for barcoding and species identification applications as well as population structure or haplotyping analyses, adaptable to high-throughput analyses.1,257Q