APA News
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Minton Treharne & Davies Ltd Public Analyst involved in second Swansea Trading Standards prosecution
Miller Carter restaurant in Swansea
Lobster Sensations
The certificate of a Public Analyst at the Minton Treharne & Davies Ltd laboratory (MTD) has been involved in a Swansea Trading Standards prosecution of another large restaurant chain.
Earlier in the year it was highlighted that MTD had reported against meat being presented as lobster in the Italian style restaurant chain “Ask” which was in fact artificially flavoured fish, formed to look like lobster meat.
Now, an assessment of a product being used taken with the menu presentation to diners in the form of a certificate, has played an important role in a member of the Miller & Carter steakhouse chain being fined £60,000 for selling lobster dishes in Swansea that contained white fish. The popular restaurant was using a frozen product called “Lobster Sensations. Only did this not resemble lobster meat, but the ingredients label identified it as a “chopped, shaped and formed lobster and white fish mix”, containing 35% lobster, 34% fish protein (a combination of white fish), and the remainder made up of fillers. This cheaper product was used in dishes such as prawn and lobster cocktail starter, lobster thermidor, grilled half lobster, and surf and turf although no mention of this fact was made on the menu.
In court the firm disputed the difference in price between lobster and Lobster Sensations as put forward by the council, and argued that some of the dishes - for example the half-lobster - had contained real lobster with Lobster Sensation added to it.
