Fraud, human error or marketing ploy — mislabelling seafood

What you get is frequently not what you think, with the mislabelling of seafood rampant across the globe. It has recently been estimated that nearly 30% of the seafood served in restaurants and sold in supermarkets has been ‘mislabelled’ as a result of fraud, human error or as a marketing ploy.

While this is unethical, there is a surprising upside to this practice — because the substituted seafood is usually more plentiful, the substitution is actually leading people to eat more sustainably.

The ecological and financial impacts of seafood mislabelling were examined by the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and the Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management program at the University of Washington, with a study published in Conservation Letters.

“One of the motivations and hopes for this study is that we can help inform people who are trying to exert their consumer power to shift seafood markets toward carrying more sustainable options,” said co-author and UW doctoral student Christine Stawitz.

Data from 43 published papers that tested the DNA of fish at various locations, including ports, restaurants, grocery stores and fish markets, was used to determine whether mislabelling occurred. This was then matched to the conservation status and estimated price for each of the mislabelled and true fishes listed in the studies.

A wide range of conservation status and price differences were seen, but two general trends emerged: true fish are of a better conservation status and slightly less expensive than the species named when fish are mislabelled.

Analysis found that true fish are valued at about 97% of the mislabelled seafood. That means consumers are paying on average a little more for mislabelled fish.

The study didn’t examine the potential reasons behind this, but the researchers speculate that while it could be intentional mislabelling to rip off consumers, it is just as likely that restaurants and markets are serving and stocking fish that they think match the label but are cheaper, more plentiful options. A white fish fillet can look like any number of species, they explained, and substitutions could happen anywhere in the supply chain.

The new study also summarises which fish are most likely to be mislabelled and, of those, which varied the most in conservation status between true fish and mislabelled fish. For example, snapper is one of the most frequently mislabelled fish. Its conservation status is vulnerable to endangered — meaning its population isn’t doing well — but the fishes most often substituted for snapper are considered critically endangered.

Results from this study could be useful in helping consumers make sustainable purchasing decisions by avoiding fish that are most likely to be mislabelled. That list is led by croakers, shark catfish (or ‘basa’), sturgeon and perch. Consumers can also look out for fish commonly replaced with species that are not from sustainable stocks. Examples include eel, hake and snapper.

These results could also help seafood certification efforts such as the Marine Stewardship Council focus efforts on fisheries that are most likely to be mislabelled, the researchers say. The Marine Stewardship Council certifies fisheries for sustainable fishing practices and follows seafood from the port to markets. This study offers information about where mislabelling might happen when products aren’t tracked through the whole chain of custody. A fish often travels from the port to processors and several distributors before reaching the end market, and this change of hands is likely where mislabelling happens, the study found.

Image: Fish labelled as red snapper are seen on ice in a fish market. Image credit: Margaret Siple/University of Washington