Whilst the bulk of my work focusses on Food Safety and One Health impacts, we sometimes encounter scenarios which directly link to authenticity issues. This paper we published earlier this year was an example of this. We conducted an investigation into the first formally recorded incident of Ciguatera Fish Poisoning in mainland UK as a consequence of multiple UK citizens consuming Red Snapper fillets imported from the Indian Ocean. Our work revealed the extremely high toxicity, confirmed the presence of causative ciguatoxins and also showed the products were mislabelled, with DNA barcording showing the Red Snappers (Lutjanus bohar) to actually be the Pinjalo Snapper (Pinjalo pinjalo). As such the work demonstrated that mislabelled (unintentional or otherwise) fish from high risk regions where Ciguatera is known to exist (affecting >50,000 people per year according to some estimates) can cause severe human poisonings - showing that food authenticity and food safety are both major issues to content with in the context of fish imports to the UK and mainland Europe originating from the Indian, Caribbean and Pacific Oceans.
doi.org/10.3390/md23020067