UBC researchers are developing new techniques to identify the seafood sold in Metro Vancouver and they say their findings, released Friday, point to widespread seafood fraud. By using a technique called DNA barcoding, researchers were able to identify the genes of fish from a survey of 300 samples in Metro Vancouver from both sushi restaurants and grocery stores. Dr. Xiaonan Lu, UBC associate professor of food science, said the most commonly mislabelled fish sold on the market is red snapper. The reason seafood suppliers are able to mislabel fish so easily is because of the long process of importing fish. "In summer, in Metro Vancouver, we should have a lot of wild salmon, but we only have a five or six month window that we have just farmed salmon."

Source: CBC News January 27, 2018 01:52 UTC