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State Orders Sysco To Reel In False Grouper Claims

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By KEITH MORELLI and MICHAEL SASSO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 4, 2008

TAMPA - A state investigation into fake grouper showing up in Tampa Bay area restaurants has ended in a settlement with the giant food-service company Sysco Corp., which supplied many of the restaurants serving the bogus grouper.

Owners of restaurants caught up in the probe say they will be more mindful of checking deliveries in the future but it is tough to police fish because many fillets look alike.

Under the state agreement, Sysco will be required to take extra steps to ensure that the grouper it markets to restaurants is the real thing, according to the settlement with the Florida attorney general's office. The office hopes it will help put an end to the ongoing problem of "grouper-substitution" - charging restaurant customers for grouper but serving them less-expensive fish.

Some of the restaurants involved insist they didn't know they served bogus grouper.

At least three local Hooters restaurants, owned by Clearwater-based Hooters Inc., were found to have served fake grouper, including two that served a type of fish known as painted sweetlips, according to state documents. However, Hooters Inc. President Neil Kiefer challenges the validity of the state's testing. He said there are numerous types of grouper, and he thinks the Hooters samples the state tested actually may have been an obscure type of grouper.

Josh Hartford, the owner of Oaks Bar & Grill in Brandon, said he stopped purchasing fish from Sysco after the controversy flared up.

However, it's nearly impossible for a restaurateur to distinguish a grouper fillet from some other fillets, he said. A restaurateur would need to see the entire fish to do so, and getting shipments of whole fish isn't practical, he said.

Hartford and Kiefer said restaurants can't test all the fish delivered to their kitchens.

"At what point do you have to trust your distributor?" Hartford asked.

Hartford, who said he unwittingly received emperor fish instead of grouper in deliveries from Sysco, wants to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"I don't ever want to go through that again. It cost us business, reputation," he said.

After reports about fake grouper began appearing two years ago, the attorney general's office launched an investigation and purchased fish from more than 20 Bay area restaurants. After testing the fish at a North Florida lab, the agency found that 17 restaurants had substituted other fish for grouper. Later, it discovered that Sysco supplied grouper products to 14 of those 17 restaurants.

The settlement doesn't place blame on Sysco, said Sandi Copes, a spokeswoman for the attorney general. However, it requires the company's local operation, Sysco Food Services - West Coast Florida Inc., to refrain from marketing fish as grouper if it can't positively identify it as the fish.

There were times when Sysco could not conclusively identify a fish as grouper, so it assumed it was authentic and supplied it to restaurant customers, Copes said. In the future, the company will have to take extra steps to ensure it is genuine, she said.

Mark Palmer, a Sysco communications official, said the company never knowingly mislabeled anything as grouper. The company always has tested its fish, but now is using a type of DNA testing that will better help it identify grouper, he said.

As part of the settlement, Sysco Food Services - West Coast Florida will donate $100,000 worth of food to area soup kitchens and charities and pay a $200,000 fee to the state for investigative costs.

"Grouper is an important part of Florida's market and everyone gains from ensuring that our restaurants are receiving and serving the real thing," Attorney General Bill McCollum said in a news release.

The settlement wraps up the state's probe, McCollum's office said.

The attorney general's office previously settled its investigation into restaurants that served bogus grouper, many saying they did so unwittingly.

Settlements were made with some of the restaurants, including Tampa's La Teresita Cafeteria on West Columbus Drive, which was ordered to repay the state $4,500 to cover investigative costs; The Casual Clam on Ninth Street North in St. Petersburg; and Woody's Waterfront Cafe in St. Pete Beach, each of which repaid the state $2,500.

Each also donated $500 to the laboratory that conducted DNA tests to show that the fish were not grouper. Other restaurants also reached settlements with the state, but Copes did not have details of those agreements Wednesday.

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com. Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865 or msasso@tampatrib.com.

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