Featured Image Credit: Gordon M. Grant via New York Times
By Sarah Sharkey
When you go to a restaurant and order fish, there is a 1 in 5 chance that you are not eating the type of fish that you ordered.
Oceana, an ocean conservation group, conducted a study that tested more that 25,000 samples of seafood. They found that 1 in 5 was mislabeled as a different type of fish. This means that people order one type of seafood and are receiving another.
Generally, people would like to know what they are eating. It is just not a good practice for the seafood industry to allow people to purchase and consume seafood without knowing what it really is. The study proved that there is extensive fraud in the seafood industry. Dock to Dish is hoping to change this.
Dock to Dish is an organization that tries to stop this fraud by connecting chefs with fishermen in their local communities. They are also developing a system that allows fish to be tracked through barcoded bags. This tracking information would allow restaurant patrons to see where their food is coming from.
Dock to Dish was founded by veteran seafarers who want to be the “salt water brother of the farm to table movement.”
Their model is membership based, so if a restaurant signs up for their services, Dock to Dish provides them with seafood that is harvested with the goal of sustainability and consumer awareness.