(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-03-29 09:00

TOKYO - As Japanese sushi conquers restaurants and homes around the world, industry experts are fighting the side-effects of the raw fish boom: fake sushi bars, over-confident amateurs, poisoned consumers.

Chefs and sushi experts at an international restaurant summit in Tokyo warned of a lack of awareness in handling raw fish among amateurs and some restaurateurs who enter the profitable industry without sufficient training.

"Everybody thinks: 'Sushi is so expensive - I can buy cheap fish, fresh fish, I can make it at home.' It's not true. Not every fish is suitable to eat raw," chef and restaurateur Yoshi Tome told Reuters.

Tome's restaurant, Sushi Ran in Sausalito, California, was awarded a Michelin star.

"I get these questions all the time - people call me: 'Hey Yoshi, my husband went to fish a big salmon, we're looking to eat it as sashimi. We opened it and a bunch of worms came out. Can we eat it'?"

His answer: You cannot eat it as sashimi; but you can throw away the affected parts and cook and eat the rest.

In fact, Tome said salmon, which is prone to parasites, should never be eaten raw but be cooked, marinated, or frozen before being consumed.

He described another case in which an inexperienced restaurateur in the United States served raw baby crab. This led to cases of food poisoning and prompted a recall of that type of crab. Tome serves the crab deep-fried at his restaurant and says it is perfectly safe if prepared the right way.

Japan's bureaucrats drew criticism and ridicule a year ago with a plan to create a global "sushi police" that would assess Japanese restaurants overseas. Since then, there has been a change of tactics, and the emphasis is now on education and advice rather than uninvited checks.

Ryuji Ishii, who runs the Advanced Fresh Concepts Franchise Corp, the largest supplier of fresh sushi to supermarkets in the United States, finds that education is important not just for food safety purposes.

Ishii is rolling out his ready-to-eat sushi range in Wal-Mart supermarkets, having opened almost 90 sushi stalls since last September.

But bringing raw fish and seaweed to middle America takes some work - Ishii cautiously described the sales as "decent".

"The challenge is, we have never dealt with that market. So far, we've been dealing with a very upscale market, high-end supermarkets," he said in an interview on the sidelines of the two-day summit.

"In order to become really mainstream, we have to overcome the Wal-Mart consumers," Ishii said. "We need more time to educate the consumers."