SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — Price Chopper Supermarkets conducted DNA testing on a selection of its seafood offerings to verify that the species were accurately labeled, the retailer announced last week.
Price Chopper hired Therion International, a company specializing in animal DNA testing, to verify the identity of 150 samples from 15 frozen fish product lines. The retailer made sure to test the species that are most likely to be mislabeled, including catfish, cod, flounder, haddock, halibut, mahi mahi, orange roughy, red snapper, sockeye salmon, swai, swordfish and tuna.
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The tests confirmed that the samples were all correctly labeled.
“By commissioning DNA testing, we’re raising the industry bar on seafood species verification, which then allows us to provide a higher level of assurances to our customers about the product that they’re purchasing from us,” Price Chopper spokesperson Mona Golub told SN.
Price Chopper plans to continue to randomly test selections of their seafood offerings, Golub said.
The retailer decided to publicize its efforts because of recent media attention around seafood mislabeling, and California Senator Barbara Boxer’s calling on the Food and Drug Administration to prevent seafood fraud earlier this month, said Golub.
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