Over 500,000 flying fish may be dumped by Barbados because of contamination

(Barbados Nation) Over 500 000 flying fish may have to be dumped following discovery of contamination by health officials over the last several days.

Already, about 50 000 of the popular Barbadian delicacy have been condemned and quality control inspectors from the Market Division of the Ministry of Agriculture are carrying out full-scale investigations at the two major markets at Oistins and the Bridgetown Fishing Complex.

Markets manager Henderson Greaves, in confirming the discovery, said the action taken was part of an ongoing investigation after his department had learnt that the large volume of flying fish was stored and being made ready for sale.

“When we discovered that these items were coming into the public domain for sale, we had to act quickly and we found that there were indeed thousands of contaminated fish,” he said.

Greaves said the department’s quality control officers were specially trained and capable of identifying fish unfit for public consumption.

WEEKEND NATION investigations revealed that the 50 000 fish were bought from a supplier last week by a businessman who is involved in the food industry.