Erwin Sutanto is frustrated. Customs and Border Protection is challenging the country of origin of his company’s product based on laboratory test results, but has been unwilling to discuss the laboratory testing that made the determination.

Sutanto is president-director of Jakarta-based CP Prima, one of the world’s largest grower-processors of shrimp. Last August, Customs began detaining containers of the company’s frozen shrimp at the Port of Los Angeles. Officers said that trace mineral tests indicated that the crustaceans were transshipped from China. So far, Customs has held about 40 containers. Some were later released, but Customs hit importers with a 112 percent anti-dumping duty.

CP Prima vigorously disputes the transshipment allegation, and said the Customs’ testing was invalid for determining the origin of farm-raised shrimp. “The typical way to discuss country of origin is through production records,” Sutanto said. “We have them all the way back to the brood stock. For every bag of shrimp that we sell, we can tell you which farm it came from, what the growing conditions were, where the feed came from, and even the mother of the shrimp. That’s not easy to find in our industry.

“This lab test, unfortunately we don’t know what it is,” Sutanto said. “We don’t exactly know which minerals they’re testing for, or how they came up with the conclusion that the shrimp are from China and not Indonesia.”

Customs officials declined to comment about CP Prima or the laboratory testing, saying the case is still under investigation. CP Prima representatives met with Customs in November. Attorney Susan Kohn Ross, who represents CP Prima, said Customs indicated it would send investigators to Indonesia to sample the company’s production ponds, but has not done so.

She said Customs is relying on the trace minerals test, but the company has scientific evidence to the contrary on its side. If Customs is testing seawater, it’s the same, whether it’s China, Indonesia or anywhere else. Traces in shrimp food have also been ruled out because CP uses the same formula in 16 countries.

“Our scientists tell us that the trace minerals test is not a reliable indicator of origin as it relates to shrimp,” Ross said. “The reason is something that even non-scientists can understand: Seawater has basically the same mineral content, regardless where it comes from, even if it’s diluted.”

Steve Otwell, professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Florida, said Customs’ testing methods are interesting, but he’s unconvinced. “I don't have enough information to draw a final conclusion, but on first appearance, I think it will be a challenge to use this type of technology,” he said.

“The black box of our conversation is that Customs has not shown its hand,” Otwell said. “Until we know the science behind it, and the instrumentation that’s involved, I’m skeptical.” Otwell runs an annual “shrimp school” for the shrimp aquaculture industry. He has invited Customs to attend and discuss its laboratory methodology.

Otwell said the European Union has used trace mineral profiles in limited circumstances to determine the origin of beef and dairy products. “Even if the test was used for agricultural animals eating greens from the locally grown fields, it had some complications,” he said. “Now you’re using an aquacultured animal. There can be a myriad of complications.”

One way of mitigating the complications would be to collect a large database of samples that could be used for comparison. “I don’t know if Customs had done that,” Otwell said. The technology to identify shrimp DNA is still in the future. The tester still would need to assemble a database, and, so far, identifying wild species in the Gulf of Mexico has been a problem.

Trace minerals could be used in a positive way, Otwell said. Producers could put mineral “tags” into shrimp feed to prove the country of origin.

“It’s Customs’ position that they have a test that is valid, and that’s what we have to overcome,” Ross said. “The operational folks have to defer to the lab folks. The lab folks can’t afford to give up the test, because they use it in so many different contexts. If they admit the test is not valid in one case, it calls the use of the test into question in every other context.

“I think this is part of a bigger issue that Customs has with what’s going on with China. There probably isn’t an import product line that Customs hasn’t found somebody playing games,” Ross said.

Sutanto said CP Prima’s exports jumped 50 percent in 2008, and that may have set off Customs’ alarms. However, the growth spurt came because the company expanded capacity after buying the assets of a bankrupt producer from the Indonesian government. The company now has more than 18,500 acres of shrimp ponds in Indonesia. Last year, it exported 100,000 tons of shrimp, a third of Indonesia’s total volume.

“I’m sure Customs suspects there’s something funky going on,” Ross said.

“If you take a look at the size of CP’s operations, they don’t need to get some shrimp from China, and then transship it.

It would be unbelievably foolish for them to be doing the sort of thing that’s being suggested.”

“In terms of scale, as a company, we’re competing with countries,” Sutanto said. Until CP Prima knows more about Customs’ testing, “it’s very hard for us to say what the outcome is going to be. We hope that more information will be shared so we can have a healthy discussion about the test. We obviously think it’s wrong, but we hope we will be given the opportunity to at least discuss it, and come to a rightful conclusion.”

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