Trace element concentrations in white leg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei from retail stores in the EU, UK, and USA and the ability to discern country of origin with classification models

Robert Davis; Claude E Boyd; Joshua Wakefield; Olga Shatova; Aaron McNevin; Blake Harris; D Allen Davis

doi:10.1016/j.crfs.2021.09.004

Trace element concentrations in white leg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei from retail stores in the EU, UK, and USA and the ability to discern country of origin with classification models

Curr Res Food Sci. 2021 Sep 20:4:655-661. doi: 10.1016/j.crfs.2021.09.004. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Robert Davis¹, Claude E Boyd¹, Joshua Wakefield², Olga Shatova², Aaron McNevin³, Blake Harris³, D Allen Davis¹

Affiliations

¹ Auburn University, School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences, 203 Swingle Hall, Auburn, AL, 36849, USA.
² Oritain Global Limited, 167 High Street, Dunedin, 9016, New Zealand.
³ World Wildlife Fund, 1250 24th St NW, Washington, DC, 20037, USA.

Abstract

Shrimp are a globally traded aquaculture commodity that accounts for a large proportion of the monetary value of aquaculture. There are concerns among consumers about seafood labeling fraud and environmental sustainability. Therefore, the geographic origin of shrimp from retail stores was investigated with trace element profiling. 94 shrimp samples were collected from grocery stores across the USA, UK, and EU in 70 different grocery stores. The results of 24 elements are reported. Shrimp samples were from Thailand, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Ecuador were shown to have 15 elements that were statistically different across labeled country of origin, with Ecuador having unique post hoc group membership in 5 of the elements. Based on a classification procedure, shrimp were classified to labeled country of origin with an overall accuracy of 71.2%. Overall, the results suggest that elemental profiling could be a traceability tool for classifying samples of shrimp from retail stores.

Keywords: Aquaculture; Elemental profiling; Shrimp; Sustainability; Traceability.