This paper (open access) reports the result of an analytical survey to verify the labelled species of prawn/shrimp on commercial sale in the Madrid area. The 55 prawns and prawn products were collected from supermarkets and fishmongers between October 2021 and June 2022. They included frozen, fresh and boiled products, and (nominally) represented 19 different species from 13 genera.
The researchers amplified the mitochondrial DNA (COI gene). Sequences were edited with MEGA 11 software 27 and compared against the GenBank database at the National Centre for Bio-technology Information (NCBI) using the Basic Local AlignmentSearch Tool (BLAST). The identification obtained by barcoding was compared with the species information collected at establishments/labels.
They found that almost 30% of supermarket products were mislabelled. These were almost exclusively frozen samples (95% of the total) regardless of its price point. Products from the Pacific Ocean seemed to be particularly susceptible to mislabelling.
On the basis of their findings, the authors recommend that Spanish consumers concerned about the veracity of species labelling should avoid supermarket frozen prawns and prawn products in preference of fresh products from fishmongers.
Photo by Daniel Lee on Unsplash
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