Customer reports live anisakis in hake at Madrid Alcampo

Customer reports live anisakis in hake at Madrid Alcampo

A customer of an Alcampo supermarket on Príncipe de Vergara street in Madrid told OKDIARIO that she received a home delivery order of 890 grams of hake fillets on December 13, 2023, which contained live anisakis worms up to three centimeters long. The chain, a subsidiary of the French group Auchan, confirmed that their response was to offer a product return and noted that legislation only requires removing batches that are manifestly parasitized.

According to the customer's account, the employee handling the complaint advised her to freeze the fish at home. The affected person interpreted this as evidence that the cold chain had not been respected. "Otherwise, all those creatures would have died," she reasoned. The company maintains that it passed on recommendations from public authorities.

What is anisakis and why does it appear in hake

Anisakis is a parasite that, according to the Spanish Association for Food Safety and Nutrition, causes digestive disorders and allergic reactions that can sometimes be severe. European and Spanish legislation prohibits selling fishing products with visible parasites. For raw or lightly cooked consumption, prior freezing under established conditions is mandatory.

Hake is one of the most susceptible species. In the debate generated by this case, a participant with two decades of fishing experience claims he has never seen anisakis in his catches. Others counter that North Atlantic hake almost always arrives with parasites and that the opposite would be strange. This discrepancy cannot be resolved with anecdotes.

Alcampo's response and the traceability problem

Alcampo assures that its buyers at auction markets have instructions to acquire gutted and not heavily parasitized batches, and that quality inspectors reject manifestly parasitized ones upon arrival. Every morning, before sending goods to stores, experts and external laboratories examine freshness, temperature, ice, labeling, melanosis, parasitism, weight, or size. The company estimates more than 100,000 annual parasitism checks.

The nuance lies in the statement itself: in non-gutted products, it is impossible to detect anisakis because it resides in the viscera. And legislation only requires removing manifestly parasitized batches. This means the legal margin allows fish with parasites not visible at packaging time to reach the consumer.

Freezing at home: official recommendation or patch

The recommendation to freeze fresh fish before consumption is not invented by the fishmonger. Public authorities support it to prevent anisakiasis. The problem arises when it becomes an excuse for not reviewing the cold chain. Several participants note that domestic freezing does not replace control at the source.

Some point out that anisakis proliferated since the 1970s, when factory trawlers dumped parasitized viscera into the sea, feeding other fish. The ban on dumping viscera came later. If the parasite has always existed, its expansion has an industrial explanation.

The price of hake and the neighborhood where it was sold

Hake is one of the most expensive fish in Spanish fish shops. That the incident occurred on Príncipe de Vergara, a high-income area of Madrid, adds an uncomfortable element: neither the price nor the postal code guarantee different quality control. The affected customer made it clear: she doesn't want the money, she won't buy fish there again.

The underlying discussion is not whether anisakis exists, but how much parasitized fish is being sold as fresh and who bears the cost of detecting it. The official answer is that it is controlled. The practical answer is that consumers should freeze it. Between both, there is a gap that no one closes completely.

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How many hakes with anisakis are removed before reaching the counter and how many pass the filter?