Last twelvemonth , a disgraceful reportby the seafood sustainability nonprofit Oceana concluded that 33 pct of fish sold in American retail outlets is mislabeled . The findings – based on desoxyribonucleic acid testing of 1,200 sample from 674 stores in 21 states – were in line with other late international investigation that have all play up aworrisome lack of transparencyin the seafood industriousness . On top of foil customers who think they arepaying for a top - shelf fish , such as tunny and snapper , but are actually guide home a cheap farmed or high - hydrargyrum fish , like genus Tilapia or tilefish , fraudulent recording label are often implement to handle up a product ’s unscrupulous and unsustainable sourcing .
Hoping to further examine the corruption of the seafood supply chain in North America , a team of researchers from the University of British Columbia collaborated with Oceana to collect and genetically analyze 285 seafood samples from grocery store and restaurants across the Vancouver domain .
Writing inFood Control , lede source Xiaonan Lu and his colleagues reveal that 25 percent of their samples belong to to a different species than their marketer claimed . With a 29 percent mislabeling rate , eating house were the worst wrongdoer , followed by grocers at 24 percent . Sushi restaurants specifically – with a 23 percent rate – showed the dispirited mislabeling . In line , Oceana previously found a countrywide mislabeling norm of 74 pct .
And if you ’re a sports fan of red snapper , Lu ’s squad has some sobering news show – only 9 percent of sample were actually that fish . move over that the past study see a less than 6 pct rate of honest labeling , we have to wonder how many people have ever truly eaten reddish cracker bonbon .
“ Evidence of the various motivations of the mislabeling , including knowing substitution using less expensive species , purposed mislabeling of by - catch or illegal , unreported and unregulated fishing products , and unintentional misidentification or abuse of accent and slang were all observed , ” the authors write .
The inadvertent misidentification they mention arises because several pop types of Pisces are informally hump by legion unlike names , depending particularly on where you are and who you ’re speak to . To give youa taste of the issue , per the US FDA , any of 64 dissimilar species of fish can be legally sold as " grouper " , 56 can be commercialize as " snapper " , and 60 can be " rockfish " .
" Seafood fraud cheats Canadian consumer and smart local , reliable black cat as well as chefs and seafood companies looking to buy sustainable seafood . It causes wellness concerns and mask world-wide human rights abuses by creating a market for illicitly caught Pisces , " Julia Levin , an anti - fraud campaigner with Oceana Canada , enounce in astatement . " The paint to fighting seafood fraud is boat - to - plate traceability . This means tracking the seafood product through the provision chain and requiring that key information jaunt with the intersection . "
