Will the cheating ever stop?

The recent news that consumers in 17 U.S. states may be paying up to USD 23 (EUR 17) per pound for ice when purchasing frozen seafood shocked the mainstream media. Unfortunately, the practice is not new and is certainly not limited to the United States.

About 30 years ago, the seafood trade press in the United Kingdom predicted that water would soon have to be placed at the top of the list of ingredients on the packaging of certain frozen seafood products, including the amount of glaze being added. This never materialized, and the obvious way to help stamp out the practice of adding excessive glaze is to legislate that frozen seafood must be sold by its net weight. Not that such legislation will always be followed.

However, there is no need to add any glaze at all to frozen seafood. Although some will argue that 5 percent, even 10 percent, of ice is necessary as a protection against freezer burn, scientists at the former Torry Research Station in Aberdeen categorically stated that if a product had been frozen correctly, packaged correctly and stored correctly, then no "protective" ice is required.

The practice of selling water as seafood is not restricted to the addition of glaze, either. Binding in extra water by tumbling, or soaking, seafood in a polyphosphate solution — usually sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP) — is not uncommon.

Again, certain indsutry players may argue that the use of STPP prevents drip — moisture lost normally during processing.

Although the use of STPP in food is not illegal, the temptation for processors to bind in excessive water and therefore substantially increase the sale weight of products forces many countries regulate the amount allowed in seafood. But these regulations are not always adhered to because of the temptation to make a quick buck.

However, there is positive news to report on this front. In about five months, the use of polyphosphates to bind in water to pangasius fillets in Vietnamese processing plants will be stopped, if the country's government passes legislation to limit the water content (including glaze) in exported products to 83 percent.

Though it may not be worthwhile to attempt to bind in water to a relatively inexpensive seafood item such as pangasius, competition amongst producers is so severe that any opportunity to lower the selling price is seized upon.

Tests carried out on imported pangasius fillets in 2009 by the Federal Institute of Fisheries in Hamburg, Germany, found that some of them had water contents as high as 90 percent when there should have been a maximum level of 85 percent even if the fillets had been glazed.

Not surprisingly, these findings resulted in complaints and probably helped to spur the Vietnamese government into action; the European Union, after all, is Vietnam's biggest seafood buyer.

Tests carried out on pangasius in Vietnam found water contents ranging from 78.21 percent to 80.96 percent for whole fish and from 78.84 percent to 82.07 percent for untreated, non-polyphosphated fillets. Then, depending for how long the fillets had been tumbled in STPP, the water content ranged from 82.6 percent to 87.17 percent, a weight gain of between 5 percent and 20 percent.

A weight gain of 5 percent in Vietnamese pangasius fillets due to the use of STTP has been reported, and because the amount of glaze added to pangasius fillets can range up to 30 percent — 20 percent glaze is the official maximum allowed in Vietnam — the potential for fraud is enormous.

While the amount of glaze on seafood can easily be measured and the use of STTP simply detected, there has been a sinister development in the use of a non-phosphate additive that binds in water but is virtually untraceable. Called MTR, it consists of sodium bicarbonate, sodium chloride (common table salt) and citric acid. Fillets dipped in MTR are said to be regarded as untreated, because it's so difficult to detect the compound.

So, as one door to potentially cheating the consumer closes, another opens up. When will seafood processors learn that these practices, and the ensuing adverse publicity, do the entire industry tremendous harm?