Rapid detection of fish species and quality in the marketplace

A goal of the “Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Enforcement Act” is to prevent illegally harvested fish from entering our ports and market and to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Seafood is highly vulnerable to fraud due to factors such as the similar appearance of many species, variation in prices, complex supply chains, and challenges with supply and demand. Instances of seafood fraud are frequently reported; however, many incidents go undetected and the full extent of seafood fraud is difficult to determine. Existing rapid DNA testing can only detect a single species with each assay. There is a need for technology to rapidly detect mislabeling. The SafetySpect Quality, Adulteration and Traceability (QAT) system delivers innovation in the management of seafood supply chains. QAT provides rapid species identification, ability to incorporate many species (unlike rapid DNA analysis), bypasses sample preparation, and reduces the time and cost of species identification. QAT uses multimode spectroscopy, combining reflectance and fluorescence-based spectral analysis and a fusion AI classification algorithm. During Phase II, we will design and build handheld multimode spectroscopy systems, test them at several nodes in the seafood supply chain and expand the spectral dataset up to 200 fish and shellfish species.