New Handheld Device Can 'Sniff Out' Fish Fraud in Markets and Restaurants

Fish fraud may not seem like a big deal, but it's becoming huge business. In fact, it's estimated that up to 30 percent of the seafood entering the U.S. is fraudulently mislabeled and now, researchers have found a way to sniff out fraudulent species claims.

In all, mislabeled seafood bilks U.S. fishermen, the U.S. seafood industry and American consumers an estimated $20 to $25 billion annually. One particular issue is passing off other fish as grouper. That's why, in this case, scientists have created a handheld device that can "sniff out" which fish is which.

"The demand for grouper in the U.S. is so strong that it cannot be met by the harvesting of domestic species alone," said Robert Ulrich, the lead author of the new study, in a news release. "In 2012, over 4,000 metric tons of foreign grouper, worth $33.5 million, were imported into the U.S. This mass quantity of imported grouper creates opportunities for fraud, which can lead consumers to pay more for lesser valued seafood species and may allow importers to avoid paying tariffs."

The new handheld device identifies seafood by using real-time nucleic acid sequenced-based amplification (RT-NASBA). The device purifies and identifies the sample's RNA, which allows it to figure out which species the sample comes form.

The new technology may actually be accurate enough to detect grouper substitution on cooked fish at the point of restaurant service, even when the samples are masked by breading or sauces. This could be huge in terms to detecting fish fraud.

Currently, the new technology is being commercialized by a USF spinoff company called PureMolecular, LLC. While this device is currently only geared toward detecting whether or not a fish is grouper, assays for other commercially important seafood species are also being developed.

The findings are published in the journal Food Control.

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