The next time you sit down for seafood in a restaurant or pick up fish in your local supermarket, you might not be getting what you think you’re paying for. A new study has unveiled vast seafood fraud across the globe.
Is It Snapper… Or Something Else?
Before you stick your fork into that “snapper” at a restaurant, you might be surprised to find that it isn’t snapper at all.
A slew of recent studies use a relatively new DNA analysis technique to find out if seafood is actually the creature the label says it is. A Guardian Seascape analysis examined 44 recent studies of over 9,000 seafood samples taken from restaurants, fishmongers, and supermarkets in over 30 countries. The analysis found that 36% of all seafood was mislabeled. In the end, the analysis exposed that seafood fraud exists on a vast global scale, the Guardian reported.
In the analysis, the UK and Canada fared the worst for seafood fraud, with more than half of samples tested, 55%, mislabeled. The US was next with 38% of fish mislabeled.
Shockingly, in one 2018 study, it found that nearly 70% of seafood samples in the UK claiming to be snapper were of a different fish – actually belonging to 38 different species. The study identified some of the species as reef-dwelling species that it said were probably threatened by habitat degradation and overfishing.
In another analysis that tested for “snapper,” which took samples from supermarkets, fishmongers and restaurants in the UK, Canada, the US, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, roughly 40 percent of fish tested was mislabeled.
Scallops, Shark May Also Be Mislabeled
In testing other species, for example, king scallops in Germany, the researchers found that the samples were actually the less coveted Japanese scallop.
In Italy, looking at shark fillets purchased from Italian fish markets and fishmongers, approximately 45 percent of the fish were of a less expensive, unpopular shark species instead of what the consumers were led to believe they were purchasing.
But perhaps one of the most surprising examples of fraud comes from Singapore, where prawn balls were frequently found to contain pork and not a single trace of prawn.
Another troubling fish substitution was in China. The study looked at 153 roasted fish fillet products from 30 commercial brands purchased from local markets. The testing found a fraud rate of 58%, but worse, the fish substituted in some products was from the deadly pufferfish family.
Restaurants Have the Highest Rate of Fraud
One study collected seafood samples from 180 restaurants across 23 countries in Europe. The study found that mislabeling rates ranged from 40% to 50% and occurred the most in Spain, Germany, Iceland, and Finland. Customers ordering yellowfin tuna, bluefin, sole or pike perch only had a 50% chance of getting what they ordered. The most frequently mislabeled fish were dusky grouper and butterfish.
White fish such as cod, sole, and haddock is often replaced by a little-known and inexpensive shark catfish, which is widely farmed in Vietnam and Cambodia. Another frequently substituted fish is the use of tilapia for red snapper.
