Public hearing in Mass. to tackle seafood fraud

Seafood mislabeling is the subject a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday at the Massachusetts State House.

The Boston Globe reported over the weekend that the state Legislature’s Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure has been meeting with seafood professionals and federal and state officials since it published an exposé on seafood mislabeling in October.

The investigation found that 48 percent, or 87 of the 183 seafood samples tested, were sold with the wrong species name. The Globe exposé has helped renew interest in curtailing the problem of seafood fraud among the media, the industry and federal and state officials.

The purpose of the hearing is “to better understand and to ensure that remedial actions are being taken by both state agencies and the industry to restore consumer confidence that the of mislabeling of fish is no longer occurring in the Commonwealth,” Massachusetts legislators Theodore Speliotis and Thomas Kennedy wrote in a letter announcing the hearing.

Editor’s note: SeaFood Business Senior Editor James Wright will be reporting from the hearing on Wednesday.

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