At Sugarfish, KazuNori and Nozawa Bar we are fanatical about the ingredients we serve and work relentlessly to uphold our quality standards.

Seafood mislabeling gets quite a bit of press attention from time to time and it turns out this issue is a lot more complex than people think. Sushi Nozawa Group has taken a leading role with Loyola Marymount University in the LA Seafood Monitoring Project, which aims to significantly reduce the incidence of confusion, mislabeling — and at times, fraud — that exists in LA sushi restaurants.

Last year, the Project announced a 65% drop in mislabeling rates for participating restaurants in the Los Angeles Seafood Monitoring Project. It also reported a 19% decline overall in the average rate of mislabeled samples collected in Los Angeles over a 10-year period.

This success was achieved because people across disciplines got together to fix a problem that we all saw as solvable. Positive change happens when restaurants, government, and researchers sit down at the same table and work toward solutions!

Sushi Nozawa Group is not only a key partner and driver of the effort that resulted in a marked decline of mislabeling, they lead the way with zero instances of mislabeling since 2019.

— Démian A. Willette, Ph.D.
Professor at Loyola Marymount University
& lead author of the study