Less than a week after the Boston Globe published an investigation in which nearly half of the 134 fish samples it collected from Massachusetts restaurants and retail outlets were mislabeled, Consumer Reports is out with a seafood-mislabeling exposé of its own.
On Friday, the world’s largest independent product-testing organization revealed that more than one-fifth of the 190 seafood samples it purchased from restaurants and retail outlets in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were mislabeled as different species, incompletely labeled or misidentified by employees. Consumer Reports sent the samples to two independent labs for tested using DNA barcoding.
Editor’s note: On Thursday, SeafoodSource hosted a webinar on DNA barcoding featuring ACGT’s Edward Diehl, LeeAnn Applewhite of Applied Food Technologies and Will Gergits of Therion International. A recording of the 90-minute webinar is now available on SeafoodSource soon; only premium members can access it.
Among the investigation’s findings:
• Only four of the 14 types of fish purchased — Chilean sea bass, coho salmon and bluefin and ahi tuna — were always identified correctly
• Eighteen percent of samples didn’t match the names on placards, labels or menus. Fish were incorrectly passed off as catfish, grey sole, grouper, halibut, king salmon, lemon sole, red snapper, sockeye salmon and yellowfin tuna.
• Four percent of samples were incompletely labeled or misidentified by employees
• All 10 of “lemon soles” and 12 of the 22 “red snappers” were mislabeled
• One sample, labeled as grouper, was actually tilefish.
Among the restaurant and retail banners Consumer Reports visited were Whole Foods Market, Wegmans, A&P, Red Lobster and Bonefish Grill. In its report, Consumer Reports also cited the National Fisheries Institute and Oceana, which on Monday released an investigation of its own in which almost one-fifth of the 88 seafood samples it collected from 15 Boston-area supermarkets were mislabeled.
Also in the report, Consumers Union, Consumer Reports’ advocacy arm, supported legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate this year to help prevent seafood fraud, standardize labeling and strengthen cooperation among federal agencies that oversee seafood safety.
The organization also made a series of recommendations to consumers when buying fish. “Before deciding what fish to buy, ask the person behind the counter (or the server in a restaurant) which fish, if any, is in season, and where and how the fish was caught or farmed. Ask for the manager (or chef) if you aren’t satisfied with the answers or want to learn more. Just letting the seller know that customers are interested might raise his or her consciousness about the seafood being sold.”
Click here to read the report.
