Seafood Fraud

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Consuming seafood has become an essential part of our normal diet and even the AHA (American Heart Association) has recommended eating two seafood meals per week.  Recently, a study performed by a non-profit ocean conservative group called “Oceana” has found many fish, such as snapper and white tuna, to be mislabeled and actually replaced with harmful substitutes such as tilapia and escolar. Oceana employees and volunteers purchased around 1,200 samples from 674 retail stores in 21 states, from 2010 to 2012. DNA results from the study showed that 87% of snapper samples and 57% of tuna samples were mislabeled. Overall, the worst violators of this mislabeling came from sushi venues, where the fish mislabeling was up to 74%, while restaurants had 38% and grocery stores with 18%. Also, certain regions had a higher percentage of offense, with Southern California with 52% mislabeling and Houston/Austin with 49%.

This causes various problems related to health of the consumers, lack of oversight, unfairness to honest parties in the supply chain and fraudulent advertising.  In terms of health, substituted fishes usually are associated with health advisories and sometimes, severe dangers. For example, the Escolar, mislabeled as “white tuna” nearly 84%, is actually banned in many countries such as Italy and Japan. This is due to it containing a natural toxin that can cause serious gastrointestinal effects when ingesting several ounces. As for lack of oversight, the seafood industry has become increasingly complex and is a part of a global network that makes it extremely difficult to track the movement of the fish all the way from the fishing boat up until the final retail store. Only about 2% of all imported seafood is inspected by the FDA and a majority of them are sold in fillet form, processed or in sauce, which causes identifying the fish to be extremely difficult. Being able to pinpoint at which step in the process, the fish was replaced by a substitute is quite a challenge. This mislabeling not only cheats the customer but also the honest fisherman or suppliers who stick to the rules.

There is no clear solution to this mislabeling and fraudulent activity, but it is clear that the global network of seafood supply needs to create a tracing system of some sort that would be able to track the movements of the fish from beginning to end. It is completely unfair for consumers to be paying money to be eating potentially harmful food. If government is unable to intervene or present this type of solution, the customers can take extra precautions by becoming more inquisitive into the species and origin of the fish they are looking to purchase. Becoming educated about the fish they are selling and asking the retailers questions such as if they were wild or farmed, can motivate a more cautious attitude throughout the supply chain.