Saving Seafood

The fish you’re eating in London might not be what it’s labelled

April 16, 2019 — When biology professor Jennifer McDonald got the DNA results back from her students’ experiment on fish, a high number of the fish were not what was said on the label.

As part of a class experiment at Fanshawe College, her students were sent to grocery stores and sushi restaurants in London to collect fish samples.

The class extracted the DNA and compared how many samples were actually what they claimed to be.

Of the 16 samples, they were able to sequence nine of them due to varied success rates.

Seven of the nine were misidentified, McDonald said.

“Yeah, it was a pretty high number,” she said.

A piece of fish that was labelled as red snapper came back as tilapia, something McDonald said happens all the time.

“That really wasn’t surprising. It was disappointing but not surprising,” she said. “Same with a piece of fish that was supposed to be white tuna. That is very often actually escolar and mislabelled as white tuna.”

What did surprise McDonald was when tilapia was passed off as red tuna.

“A fish like tuna has a very characteristic taste it has a very characteristic texture and for a place to actually be fooling people into thinking that they’re eating tuna when they’re really being served tilapia was really really surprising,” she said.

Read the full story at CBC News

MASSACHUSETTS: The plan to combine fishing, tourism, and the waterfront to invigorate a New England city

November 17, 2016 — Working waterfronts along the Eastern seaboard are slowly dying out. As rising sea temperatures result in different fish migration patterns and locations, fishermen are struggling to adapt and keep up. The phenomenon is believed by many scientists to be due to climate change—the effects of which are most prominently evidenced on the East Coast according to a 2009 article, “Progress in Oceanography,” which found that waters in the northeast saw their temperatures rise at twice the global rate between 1982 and 2006. 

The port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, however, has remained strong. Since 1999 it has been the nation’s number one fishing port, netting 40 million pounds of seafood valued at more than $329 million in 2014, generating economic activity surpassing $1 billion.

Sustaining this economic fruition is a different matter, though. Boston-based consultant Sasaki Associates has produced a study of New Bedford’s waterfront, a scheme that seeks to further the area’s economic longevity. 

Proposals vary from advocating investment in particular areas and buildings to introducing other industries to the area. An example of the latter can be seen in the suggestion to enhance access—both public and private—to the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction where national and international buyers bid on fish. “A direct connection between fishing boats and the seafood auctions would improve the efficiency of getting fish to the consumer and make the process a transparent experience for the public,” reported Sasaki. Additionally, this would allow tourists to witness fish trading, something that is popular in, London, Sydney, Tokyo, and even, as Sasaki points out, Chatham, Massachusetts.

Read the full story at the Arch Paper

European Food Chain Yo! Sushi Plans US Expansion

July 7, 2015 — London-based Yo! Sushi is hoping to make it big in the U.S.

Yo! Sushi, which has 87 units, mostly in the United Kingdom, is in the early stages of its U.S. expansion, with locations in New Jersey and Florida, another three in the works, and plans to take its fast-casual restaurants up and down the East Coast.

“I think if Brits are ready for sushi, Americans are definitely ready,” said Alison Vickers, Yo! Sushi director of development.

 But growth won’t be easy. The U.S. restaurant market is tough and littered with international concepts that have tried and failed to make it big.

Yo! Sushi is aware of those challenges. But it also noted chains have found success recently, such as South African concept Nando’s Peri-Peri, and fellow British chain Pret A Manger.

“But it is the best restaurant market in the world,” Vickers said of the U.S. “We’ve had luck with the first locations. We’ve done a lot of research.”

Research has focused on the market for sushi, an increasingly popular item in the U.S., particularly with younger consumers. Sushi is now ubiquitous, available everywhere from grocery store kiosks to upscale restaurants. But Yo! Sushi aims to fill what it sees as a hole in the U.S. market.

Read the full story at Nation’s Restaurant News