Something is fishy about about the shark products sold at West Australian fish and chip shops \u2014 with new research showing ambiguous labels have confused customers about what they are eating.<\/p>\n
The new Murdoch University research shows that \u201cshark\u201d fillets sold at WA fish and chip shops are often labelled ambiguously, or in some cases wrongly.<\/p>\n
Researchers from the Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Ecosystems, Environmental and Conservation Sciences, in collaboration with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, used DNA testing to analyse 167 cooked shark products bought from 132 fish and chip shops in WA.<\/p>\n
The DNA sequencing helped to identify species from cooked \u201cshark\u201d fillets bought between March 2023 and February 2024, identifying 16 species, including 11 shark species.<\/p>\n
The findings revealed that more than half (56 per cent) of all products were sold under vague labels such as \u201cshark\u201d, \u201cflake\u201d or \u201cfish and chips\u201d \u2014 while 35 per cent of labels were wrong.<\/p>\n
The study also found that products sold simply as \u201cshark\u201d comprised species including dusky, gummy and whiskery sharks.<\/p>\n
Products sold under species-specific names such as \u201cgummy shark\u201d or \u201cbronze whaler\u201d did not always contain that species.<\/p>\n
Only 26 per cent of products bought provided information about where the seafood originated, further limiting consumers\u2019 ability to make informed buying decisions.<\/p>\n
Murdoch University researcher and lead author of the study Dr Md Robiul Hasan said the findings highlight a lack of transparency in seafood labelling meant customers couldn\u2019t make informed choices.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsumers increasingly want to know what species they are eating, where it comes from and whether it has been sourced sustainably,\u201d Dr Hasan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur results show that this information is often unavailable or inaccurate when it comes to cooked shark products sold in fish and chip shops in WA.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Dr Hasan said the findings do not necessarily indicate deliberate deception.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the species identified in this study have similar commercial values, so mislabelling may reflect the complexity of commercial fishing, seafood processing and supply chains rather than intentional substitution,\u201d Dr Hasan said.<\/p>\n
The authors say stronger seafood labelling should be implemented to improve transparency in Australia\u2019s seafood supply chain.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearer labelling would help consumers understand exactly what they are buying and support informed decisions about sustainability, health and seafood provenance,\u201d Dr Hasan said.<\/p>\n
The researchers recommend measures including mandatory use of standard fish names for cooked seafood products, origin disclosure and routine DNA auditing to improve labelling accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Something is fishy about about the shark products sold at West Australian fish and chip shops \u2014 with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,251,464],"class_list":["post-87163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-food","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}