Responding to media reports alleging restaurants and seafood retailers are not accurately identifying their products, a major supermarket chain in the northeastern United States commissioned an independent firm to test its stores’ seafood, and found no signs of mislabeling.
The Golub Corp., based in Schenectady, N.Y., owns and operates 130 Price Chopper grocery stores in New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The company recently submitted for testing more than 150 randomly-selected samples from 15 different fish product lines sold in its stores.
Therion International, based in Saratoga Spring, N.Y., used DNA-based testing to study the samples, taken from the chain’s Rotterdam, N.Y., warehouse.
“Price Chopper came to us to develop a testing protocol to help them reassure their customers about their labeling and the quality of their seafood,” said William Gergits, managing member of Therion International. “Our tests found not one incidence of mislabeling.”
In a release, Price Chopper cited a recent study by Consumer Reports magazine, which found that 18 percent of seafood samples its researchers collected from retail stores and restaurants on the East Coast last year were mislabeled. The statement also mentioned a recent investigation by the Boston Globe, which found that 48 percent of the fish collected from Boston restaurants, seafood markets and grocery stores was sold with the wrong species name.
“Our purpose in commissioning a course of scientifically reliable DNA testing on our seafood in addition to our own internal control procedures, is to provide quality assurances to our customers beyond those offered by other purveyors,” said Lee French, Price Chopper’s vice president of seafood. “Being able to verify the various species of fish that we carry, in much the same way that we document the sustainability of our sourcing, speaks to our philosophical position, as it offers our customers a well-deserved additional peace of mind.”
