Research and analysis

R131: Validating the origin of capture

Updated 23 July 2020

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1. Evidence requirement R131: Validating the origin of capture

First Created 6 June 2018

2. Requirement overview

2.1 Requirement detail

As part of the MMO’s ongoing work looking at enhancing provenance and traceability we are keen to investigate new methods of confirming where fish sold ashore was originally caught to support and verify other systems for managing compliance and enforcement. This applies to domestic caught fish and imported fish products requiring catch certificates.

2.2 MMO use

Compliance and Control: An increased level of traceability of catch would increase the range of tools available to the MMO for the management of fish stocks including evaluating current enforcement strategies.

2.3 External interest

Port Health Authorities, Food Standards Agency, Inshore Fisheries Conservation Authorities

3. Aims and objectives

Pilot projects were carried out in 2019 to ascertain the Technological Readiness Level (TRL) of certain techniques to establish the origin of capture of fish, these were isotopes (MMO1192), genetics (MMO1167 & MMO1191), trace elements (MMO1194) and lipids (MMO1193).

The following recommendations were made in the pilot projects which serves as a guide for how we will further develop the technologies related to this evidence requirement:

  1. Isotopes – Develop and maintain reference datasets particularly assessing species-specific isotopic variation across key locations in UK water and the surrounding sea areas.

  2. Lipids – Confirm the tentatively identified markers and secondly carry out a study looking at additional sea areas with greater numbers of samples.

  3. Trace elements - Create predictive spatial modelling and develop and maintain reference datasets.

  4. Genetics – Generate baseline spatial data for main commercial species outside of cod, hake and sole and investigate whether the diagnostic SNP polymorphisms exist for the sea areas of interest. Improvements can also be made to the existing tools to further refine the analysis.

  5. In combination – Investigate potential integration of techniques likely to improve the potential for traceability provided by any method in isolation.

In addition we maintain an interest in any other techniques able to distinguish the origin of seafood.

4. Existing evidence

4.1 MMO

The MMO pilot studies are available.

  • MMO1167 Genetics
  • MMO1191 Genetic Methodologies
  • MMO1192 Isotopes
  • MMO1193 Lipids
  • MMO1194 Trace Elements

4.2 Academic

There is a lot of current academic work looking into the four leading technology types which were investigated in the pilot studies including:

4.3 Isotopes

Katie St. John Glew et al (2019) looked at spatial models of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur stable isotope distributions (isoscapes) as well as Hobson, K.A. and Wassenaar, L.I. (Eds) Tracking Animal Migration with Stable Isotopes.

4.4 Lipids

Prior to the proof of principle work two previous studies had used lipid analysis to successfully discriminate the geographical provenance of marine species: Murzina et al. (2013) and D. Garrido, et al. (2017).

4.5 Trace Elements

Rainbow (2018) provides a comprehensive review of the biochemistry of trace elements in the natural environment and living organisms in the UK context. Sturrock et al (2012) looked at otolith elemental chemistry to retrospectively track migrations in marine fish.

4.6 Genetics

Nielsen et al. (2012) looked at gene-associated markers to provide tools for tackling IUU fishing and false eco-certification.

4.7 Other

A report by Wilkes et al (2017) for the UK Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, identified the main DNA based approaches for country of origin labelling of wider food products as: Cleaved Amplified Polymorphisms (CAPS), microsatellites, species specific PCR amplification, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), and DNA sequencing (e.g. targeting the nuclear genome or the metagenome). The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations produced a report titled an Overview of food fraud in the fisheries sector (2018) which includes some useful detail on DNA analysis to determine the geographical origin of fish and refers to the 2011 EU project FishPopTrace also mentioned in MMO1191 which aimed to create genomic tools for cod, hake, sole and herring.

5. Associated evidence requirements

R129 Validating the method of capture of fish R140 Identifying seafood species

6. Further details

For more information or to add further research to the existing evidence list please email evidence@marinemanagement.org.uk

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