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Many people depend on seafood for their living, from those who catch the fish to the restaurants that serve it. But sometimes the fish you order is not what ends up on your plate. When we first tested grouper DNA in May, we found most of the places we tested were selling the real thing. You asked us to keep testing, so we did. ABOUT RED GROUPER Grouper Characteristics: Firm texture, white meat with large flake and a mild flavor. Extra lean fish. Substitute Species: Amberjack, Snapper, Mahi-Mahi, Catfish, Tilefish, Shark. More Info: Two genera of groupers are caught throughout Florida: Mycteroperca and Epinephelus. They vary in size and weight, but are commonly marketed at 5-20 pounds. The large, white-flaked flesh contains no intramuscular bones. The skin is tough and strongly flavored and should be removed during cleaning. Source: Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services We recently ordered grouper at eight Bay County restaurants and purchased what was supposed to be grouper. We took samples from the fish we bought and sent them to Therion International in New York for DNA testing. Out of the eight restaurants we tested, only three were confirmed as grouper: Pier 77, Gulf Club Café, and Pineapple Willy's. The grouper we bought from Sharky's on the Beach turned out to be pollack. "It's entirely possible that as we were sorting through various products that somebody could've wound up breading up, especially if you ordered it as a fried item. If it was before Memorial Day as we were finalizing the menu, it's possible that we wound up breading up the wrong fish," says Smith. Smith says they've worked out the problems and all customers at Sharky's are getting the grouper they order. We also ordered a "catch of the day" sandwich from Uncle Ernie's and asked for grouper specifically. Our receipt shows we paid two dollars extra for the upgrade, but the DNA of the fish showed it was Nile perch. Sean Lyon, co-owner of Uncle Ernie's says he spends thousands of dollars on fresh grouper every week. "We put tilapia for sandwiches, and then we upcharge for grouper, so what possibly could've happened is somebody could've pulled the wrong sandwich down out of the window. That could be possible because we are human, and you know we took over this restaurant from our parents 2 years ago, and I pride myself on serving fresh grouper," says Lyon. Lyon says he welcomes testing any time at the restaurant. He also says they're changing the "catch of the day" sandwich to a grouper sandwich and raising the price, because customers have complained about the additional charge for grouper. At Hammerhead Fred's, the fish sandwich we bought tested as mahi mahi. Managing partner Rob Hammer says we ordered from an outdated menu from their website, which listed grilled grouper as the fillet. He says they moved away from using grouper for sandwiches and changed the menu when they began using mahi mahi for the sandwich this spring. "In the past we had been doing grouper on our Goombay Grill, grouper on our Black and Blue, grouper dinners, that kind of thing, but as a cost measure, instead of charging 12.95 for a fish sandwich because of the price of grouper, we decided to take an alternate path with the mahi mahi," says Hammer. He says the menu has been pulled from the website and their web designer has been given a new version to post.
Grouper from two other restaurants also tested as different fish, but the puzzled owners showed us proof that left us fishing for even more answers. The grouper sandwich we got from Dusty's Oyster Bar tested as Asian catfish. We took our results to the restaurant's manager. He showed us a box of frozen fillets labeled as grouper from Malaysia. "I can't have this in this restaurant like that. I didn't know it was catfish. Obviously we're being deceived like a lot of the customers are," says manager Gordon Lymn. Owner Callie Hicks says she's furious about the result. "We were paying top dollar to our vendors for grouper, and we use very trusted, reputable, well-established vendors to ensure to our customers that those products are what we're paying for and that that's what they're receiving. So I was absolutely shocked and we immediately ceased selling of the product," says Hicks. She says she's switched to a different vendor that gives her proof the fish has been tested and confirmed as grouper. Hicks says our fish came from a box she bought from Johnson Brothers Wholesale Meats in Panama City. Co-owner Paul Johnson says he's always bought products from reputable companies, now he says he's stopped selling grouper until he can find a vendor he can trust. The grouper sandwich we bought for $8.50 from The Fish Net restaurant in Lynn Haven came back as painted sweetlips. We took our results to owner Fayeran Norman, who showed us this box of Indonesian fillets labeled grouper supreme. She says the fish from the box is what we were given. "Health department comes in, they look at your invoices, they look at your product, and then they determine whether or not it's grouper, and they've done this the last 3-4 times they've been in and I've never had a problem with it, so yes I am surprised," says Norman. She says she bought the fish from Phillips Meats and Seafood in Panama City. Phillips sent us their invoices showing the company paid for grouper. The owner says they make every effort to ensure their products are genuine, but they can't supervise the entire process. We also called Seacoast Seafood in Jacksonville, whose name is on the box. The sales manager says they test every shipment, so it's unlikely a substitute could've slipped through. He says Seacoast contracts with Applied Food Technologies to test samples from every shipment they receive. They sent us a copy of their results, showing how samples from the Phillips Foods shipment tested. The lab report shows one sample was not in their database, but a written note at the bottom says the fish was later verified by a second test. We contacted the food and drug administration about testing of fish imports. A spokeswoman writes, "FDA does not routinely test imported seafood for improper labeling due to resource limitations and other seafood safety issues that take precedence in our efforts to protect consumer safety. Such testing is performed on a case-by-case basis though, as the situation dictates and as resources allow. We do take species substitution seriously, especially when these substitution cause food safety hazards to be overlooked or incorrectly identified. We investigate these incidences whenever we can and we welcome additional information regarding their occurrence." News 13 contacted the State Attorney General's Office. An investigator from the Economic Crimes Unit is taking a closer look at our results. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences has launched a website to help consumers tell the difference between grouper and substitutes. While investigators are busy investigating fish substitutions, there's a disagreement in the scientific community about the method they use to test for substitution. Therion International in New York conducted our testing by extracting DNA from our samples and comparing it to DNA from samples they've collected or from a public DNA database. "We've now got, in the vicinity of 40-50 different species we've collected samples and standards on. We also compare our standards to the Genbank database," says Will Gergits, managing partner at Therion. But not everyone believes these DNA results are reliable. "Databases like NCBI or Genbank, they do have a lot of correct, excellent information in there. The problem is they're public. Anybody can put sequence data in. It's not refereed, it's not strictly refereed, and there's no traceback that the sequence that's put into these public databases has ever been taxonomically verified," says AFT CEO LeeAnn Appelwhite But Therion leaders point out Genbank is run by the National Institutes of Health and internationally recognized. He also says they only use sequences from the database that are verifiable. AFT also points out the official testing used by the FDA is the protein method. "Whether or not Therion's method would hold up in court, we don't think so, the Florida Department of Agriculture food lab doesn't think so, and FDA does not think so," says Applewhite. But Therion says their methods are proven. "We've probably worked on close to four or five hundred forensic cases. We've never had our data thrown out of the courts. We've never had any fault found in our data," says Gergits. AFT says they also use DNA sequencing when their protein tests do not come up with a result, but they say they use DNA sequences from their own database. They say the DNA in their database comes from whole fish that have been verified as grouper before the testing. FDA officials say they are working on establishing an official DNA database to test imported fish. Last year, the Florida Attorney General's Office investigated several Tampa restaurants. They found 17 of 26 weren't serving grouper. In that investigation, the Attorney General's Office used DNA testing from the Whitney Laboratory at the University of Florida. |
By Tuquyen Mach - tmach@wmbb.com
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Links:
How Much Should You Be Paying?
Experts say you should expect to pay the following approximate prices for Florida grouper in restaurants:
Source: Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services
State Law
State Law Prohibits Undisclosed Substitution - Chapter 509.292, F.S. Misrepresenting food or food product; penalty,
The penalty for conviction of a misdemeanor of the second degree is a term of imprisonment not exceeding 60 days, and/or a fine of $500.
How To Report a Substitution:
If Purchased at a Restaurant: If Purchased at a Seafood Market or Grocery Store:
Florida Top 20 Species in Dollars
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As most of us who live on the Gulf Coast are well aware, seafood is a multi-billion dollar industry. 
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