DATE2022.01.17 #Press Releases

New method developed to determine the origin of shellfish

Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.

Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo

Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo

Summary

Disguising the place of origin of food products is an illegal act that seriously undermines the rights of consumers and producers, and is often exposed both domestically and internationally. The purpose of this research was to develop a method to determine the origin of shellfish, which has been difficult to do in the past, and to provide society with a deterrent to counteracting the mislabeling of place of origin.

The research group led by Project Researcher Kentaro Tanaka of Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, focused on neodymium isotope ratios, which reflect geological characteristics, and examined whether neodymium isotope ratios in shells could be used as an indicator to determine the place of origin, using clams as the subject. Specifically, they analyzed neodymium isotope ratios of clam shells collected in Japan and China, and found that neodymium isotope ratios of shells have values unique to each region and can be used as an indicator to determine the region of origin.

The newly developed method enables more accurate determination of the origin of shellfish. It is also expected to be applied to the determination of the place of origin of fish and shellfish in general.

The results of this research have been published in Food Chemistry .

Figure: Geographic distribution of neodymium isotope ratios ( _εNd ) of clams collected from Japan and China. The colors on the map represent the geological map and the colors of the triangle plots represent neodymium isotope ratios ( _εNd ).

Associate Professor Takeshi Iizuka of the Department of Earth and Planetary Science participated in the research results.

For more information, please visit the website of Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute.