If you order sea bass or snapper in a restaurant, do you actually know what you are about to eat? The answer is probably ‘no’ and there’s no easy way to find out.
New evidence shows that seafood fraud is a massive global problem, undermining biodiversity of the oceans, further depleting threatened species of fish and cheating consumers.
The Guardian’s Seascape analysis of 44 recent studies of more than 9,000 seafood samples from restaurants, fish sellers and supermarkets in more than 30 countries found that over one-third (36%) were mislabelled. Seafood fraud involves swapping cheaper fish and passing them off as more expensive fillets, or putting false or misleading information on labels.
Using new DNA analysis techniques, researchers found that of fish labelled “snapper” in Canada, the US, the UK, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, 40% were mislabelled. In 2018, nearly 70% of samples from across Britain sold as “snapper” were from 38 different species of fish. The UK and Canada had the highest rates of mislabelling at 55%, followed by the US at 38%.
These findings reflect those from earlier investigations by Oceana Canada which showed high rates of seafood mislabelling in supermarkets and restaurants across the country. Canada is stepping up efforts to combat the problem but the measures have been criticized as being too weak – for example, they don’t include restaurants.
Fish fraud is all too easy, difficult to police and highly profitable for the “fish launderers”. Seafood is traded on a global basis through complex and often murky supply chains and a large portion of the global catch is transported from fishing boats to huge factory ships for processing without any meaningful oversight. Seafood fraud also creates the impression that some fish are more abundantly available and undermines efforts to curb overfishing and sea life conservation.
So what can we do?
There is an app to better understand what one is eating and whether it involves threatened species of seafood. But the concept of “sustainable seafood” is problematic and difficult to verify. Another step is to cut back on eating seafood in favour of the new, tasty plant-based seafood. And cell-based seafood, real fish grown from cells in a bioreactor, is on the horizon. Taking these steps means we can enjoy seafood without damaging the oceans and destroying non-target creatures or the sentient beings who live there.