Use of DNA barcoding to reveal species composition of convenience seafood.

Increased education of consumers can be an effective tool for conservation of commercially harvested marine species when product labeling is accurate and allows an informed choice. However, generic labeling (e.g., as white fish or surimi) and mislabeling of seafood prevents this and may erode consumer confidence in seafood product labels in general. We used DNA barcoding to identify the species composition of two types of convenience seafood (i.e., products processed for ease of consumption): fish fingers (long pieces of fish covered with bread crumbs or batter, n = 241) and seafood sticks (long pieces of cooked fish, n = 30). In products labeled as either white fish or surimi, four teleost species were present. Less than 1.5% of fish fingers with species-specific information were mislabeled. Results of other studies show substantially more mislabeling (e.g., >25%) of teleost products, which likely reflects the lower economic gains associated with mislabeling of convenience seafood compared with whole fillets. In addition to species identification, seafood product labels should be required to contain information about, for example, harvesting practices, and our data indicate that consumers can have reasonable confidence in the accuracy of the labels of convenience seafood and thus select brands on the basis of information about current fisheries practice.

Seafood businesses' resilience can benefit from circular economy principles.

Seafood is expected to become increasingly important in future food systems and healthy diets. This transition will require the seafood sector to adapt business practices to respond to environmental and social challenges while increasing resilience. Here, we develop the circular economy-resilience framework for business models (CERF-BM) and, through exploring the current literature, apply this framework to business models in the seafood sector. We find that the majority of business models incorporate elements of circular economy and resilience in a limited way. The reviewed business models often fail to consider other supply chain actors and, instead, focus on the business itself and its customers. The CERF-BM helps to elucidate this disconnect through assessing business models against company-level actions towards circularity in combination with systems-level resilience mechanisms. To reap the synergies between the circular economy and resilience mechanisms, seafood businesses could extract more value from organic waste and dematerialize their business models.