Oceana has launched its new campaign to Stop Seafood Fraud at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
At the press briefing, Oceana and other experts explained how seafood fraud can come in many different forms – from mislabelling fish and falsifying documents to adding too much ice to packaging – and how it hurts our oceans, wallets and health.
“We can track organic bananas back to packing stations on farms in Central and Latin America, yet consumers are given little to no information about one of the most popular foods in the United States – seafood,” said Dr Michael Hirshfield, senior vice president for North America and chief scientist for Oceana. “With imports representing the vast majority of the seafood eaten in the United States, it’s more important than ever to know what we are eating and where, when and how it was caught.”
Oceana has also released a new report entitled Bait and Switch: How Seafood Fraud Hurts Our Oceans, Our Wallets and Our Health. The report found that while 84% of the seafood eaten in the United States is imported, only 2% is currently inspected and less than 0.001% specifically for fraud. In fact, recent studies have found that seafood may be mislabeled as often as 25-70% of the time for fish like red snapper, wild salmon and Atlantic cod, disguising species that are less desirable, cheaper or more readily available.
“We’ve tested well over 1,000 fish fillet samples over the past four years, from more than 50 cities across the country,” said William Gergits, co-founder and managing member of Therion International, LLC, a company that tests DNA of seafood. “Results from our DNA lab show that about half the time (an average of 50%) the fish you are eating is not the species listed on the menu.”
Oceana is calling on the federal government to make combating seafood fraud a priority, including implementing existing laws, increasing inspections, and improving coordination and information sharing among federal agencies. Oceana is also working to ensure that the seafood sold in the US is safe, legal and honestly labeled, including requiring a traceability scheme where information such as when, where, and how a fish is caught follows it throughout the supply chain – from boat to plate – allowing consumers to make more informed decisions about the food they eat.
