Alaskan black cod has featured on a Jiangsu TV news report after a Sam’s Club customer in Nanjing reported finding a worm growing inside a fish steak.
The consumer, Mrs. Xu, whose face is blurred in the TV report, told the TV cameras how she bought the black cod steak for her child’s nutrition, but when taking the fish out of the packet, noted a “long red thing like a worm” lodged in the flesh.
The cod featured in the news report is packaged in “Makers Mark” (Sam’s Club’s private label). Details on the packaging suggest the “black cod” (as labeled on the packaging) was imported and processed by a trading company in Qingdao, which imported the cod from Alaska. The packaging is also stamped with the Marine Stewardship Council eco-label.
The report, broadcast on Jiangsu TV’s evening news show, shows how food safety – in particular as related to imported product – remains a go-to topic for China’s highly-controlled media, which has also given major coverage this summer to connections drawn between COVID-19 and packaging on imported seafood. On being approached by Mrs. Xu, the Jiangsu TV reporters took the cod to the local State Administration for Market Regulation Bureau, which in turn visited the Walmart store with a camera crew in tow.
There Pei Zhi Hua, the head of the Tie Xin district sub-office of the bureau, said “all the paperwork is in order” for the product and noted that “parasite worms” are common in fresh-water and sea-water fish but are “usually killed” when the fish is stored at ultra-low temperatures. There was no suggestion that product would be removed from the shelf, but Sam’s Club offered to replace Mrs. Xu’s purchase.
This is not the first time Chinese media has reported “worms” in imported fish from Alaska. A similar case in 2016 centered on Alaska cod bought in a Sam’s Club store in Fujian Province.
China’s appetite for cod, black cod, and pollock as premium species for local dining (as opposed to feedstock for factories processing for re-export) has become a major focus for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) which invests significantly in marketing campaigns on Chinese social media in particular. China has become an important market for black cod from Alaska, an ASMI spokesperson told SeafoodSource.
Similarly, premium fish including cod have become a marketing priority for the Norwegian Seafood Council which markets “Arctic cod” to health-conscious Chinese consumers who, like Mrs. Xu in Nanjing, buy the fish for its perceived health attributes, especially for infants and the elderly.
Photo courtesy of TheFarAwayKingdom/Shutterstock
