Certified Vendors 2019
In the fall of 2019 the Seafood Forensics class at UNC Chapel Hill ran a pilot seafood certification program. For ~ two months we tested all the seafood products sold / prepared by ten local markets and restaurants. We tested the identity of every sample in our lab using DNA barcoding. Six of those ten vendors labeled at least 95%* of their products accurately and were certified:
Tom Robinson’s Fish Market Carrboro, NC
Cliff’s Meat Market Carrboro, NC
Captain John’s Dockside Chapel Hill, NC
Lantern Restaurant Chapel Hill, NC
Saltbox Seafood Joint Durham, NC
Hawthorne & Wood Chapel Hill, NC
We’ve also intensively tested Local’s Seafood, Whole Foods, and Weaver Street Market and found that they all accurately label their seafood.
*Most of these six vendors labeled their products accurately 100% of the time. However, we believe that mistakes can happen in product labeling (and in barcoding!) so we use a threshold of 95% to somewhat lower the bar for certification (chosen somewhat arbitrarily).
Let us certify your seafood product!
Our primary mission is to work with seafood vendors (fishers, distributors, retailers, and restaurants) to independently test their product. Please contact us if you are interested. You can email John at jbruno@unc.edu.
We certify vendors of all kinds every fall, beginning in mid September. Participation is free and voluntary. We will share with you a final report of all of your product that we test. We will only make public the list of participating markets and restaurants that we certify (with your consent) and we do not share any information with any agency.