# Gander shows that walleye is zander



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Gander shows that walleye is zander

http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/10325760.htm

Menu item not real deal at many eateries

Some Twin Cities restaurants that list walleye on their menus may be pulling a bait and switch on their customers.
Instead of serving walleye, a handful of restaurants are serving up a related fish species from eastern Europe called zander, according to an investigation by KARE television.

In recent weeks, television station employees ordered walleye at more than a dozen restaurants in the Twin Cities, and samples of those meals were shipped to a private laboratory in New York for DNA testing.

The tests showed that the "Beer Battered Walleye" on the menu at Spectators Grille & Bar in Savage was really zander. The "Northwoods Walleye" at the Sunshine Factory Restaurant and Bistro in New Hope was zander. And Maynard's Restaurant in Excelsior, which advertises walleye as its specialty, also served up zander.

And the list goes on.

Some of the restaurants said they thought they were purchasing walleye from their distributors. But others say money may be an explanation, as zander is cheaper than walleye.

"I can understand the incentive, but I don't agree with it," said Brad Rebers, a manager at Tavern on Grand in St. Paul. DNA tests showed the walleye a KARE employee ordered there was the real thing.

Tavern on Grand sells 50,000 pounds of walleye a year. Based on walleye and zander prices quoted by a Minneapolis fish distributor, Tavern on Grand could save $2 per pound by switching to zander  a potential savings of $100,000 per year.

But Rebers said he wouldn't do it.

"I think you jeopardize your business in the long run if you do that," he said.

Walleye produces income for a thousand commercial fishermen on Canada's Lake Winnipeg, and Minnesota consumes more walleye than any other state, KARE reported on Wednesday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said such "species substitution" is against the law.

The FDA publishes a list of acceptable market names for fish sold in the United States. Walleye, for example, can be legally sold as walleye or walleye pike. But the FDA does not allow zander to be sold as walleye.

Andrew Simons, the curator of fishes at the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota, said the lineage that led to the walleye and the lineage that led to the zander split about 12 million years ago.

"They are definitely different species," he said.

Other places where advertised walleye turned out to be zander: Majors Sports Cafe in Woodbury; Jake's Sports Cafe in Crystal; and the St. Croix Casino in Turtle Lake, Wis.

Ryan Wentz, a vice president for the Majors and Spectators restaurant chains, said his chef purchased walleye only after being assured by a distributor that it was European walleye.

Wentz said his company feels it was misled and said, "if we had known, we wouldn't have purchased it." The Majors and Spectators chain has since made sure it is purchasing only walleye.

Other restaurants also claimed they were misled.

But some food distributors denied wrongdoing.

Jim Walstrom, the president of Morey's Seafood, displayed restaurant invoices that showed fish labeled as zander, not walleye.

"We make responsible decisions for our own business, how we market our products," Walstrom said. "How someone else chooses to market it is beyond our control."


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