Report: Commercial Seafood Often Mislabeled

You may think you are buying mahi-mahi, but chances are it's really yellowtail. The red snapper you order in a restaurant could be talapia.

Seafood consumers are being exploited by mislabeled fish products, according to the environmental group Oceana, which has released a report entitled Bait and Switch: How Seafood Fraud Hurts Our Oceans, Wallets and Our Health.

“We can track organic bananas back to packing stations on farms in Central and Latin America, yet consumers are given little to no information about one of the most popular foods in the United States – seafood,” said Dr. Michael Hirshfield, senior vice president for North America and chief scientist for Oceana. “With imports representing the vast majority of the seafood eaten in the United States, it’s more important than ever to know what we are eating and where, when and how it was caught.”

Minimal inspection

The report says that while 84 percent of the seafood eaten in the United States is imported, only two percent is currently inspected, with almost no thought given to potential fraud. In fact, the report says recent studies have found that seafood may be mislabeled as often as 25 to 70 percent of the time for fish like red snapper, wild salmon and Atlantic cod, disguising species that are less desirable, cheaper or more readily available.

“We’ve tested well over 1,000 fish fillet samples over the past four years, from more than 50 cities across the country,” said William Gergits, co-founder and managing member of Therion International, LLC, a worldwide leader in DNA testing of seafood. “Results from our DNA lab show that about half the time the fish you are eating is not the species listed on the menu.”

Consumers shortchanged

The report maintains that consumers are frequently shortchanged, served a cheaper fish than the one they've paid for. With about 1,700 different species of seafood from all over the world now available in the U.S., the report says it is unrealistic to expect consumers to be able to independently and accurately determine what fish is really being served.

“Seafood fraud puts consumers and restaurants trying to make honest, eco-friendly choices at a disadvantage,” said Ellen Kassoff Gray, general manager and co-owner of top-tier D.C. restaurants Watershed and Equinox. “We need the U.S. government to provide us with the tools to make good decisions for our oceans, our pocketbooks and our health. It’s just good business.”

Oceana says the technology now exists to accurately identify different species of fish and that these tools should be put into action to stop what it calls seafood fraud. It says the government should implement existing laws, increase inspections, and improve coordination and information sharing among federal agencies.

The group said it is also working to ensure that the seafood sold in the U.S. is safe, legal and honestly labeled, including requiring a traceability scheme where information such as when, where, and how a fish is caught follows it throughout the supply chain – from boat to plate – allowing consumers to make more informed decisions about the food they eat.