Though seafood fraud, particularly the substitution of a low-value species for a higher priced one, is not a new problem for seafood supply chains, it is a growing problem, and the world’s most commonly substituted fish is pangasius, confirms the latest update to Oceana’s global fraud report.
The NGO’s “Deceptive Dishes: Seafood Swaps Found Worldwide” study states that pangasius is frequently disguised as “wild, high-value fish,” and has stood in for 18 types of fish worldwide. There were 141 instances where pangasius took the place of other species, mostly for perch, grouper and sole.
Oceana said investigative journalists first publically uncovered pangasius as a substitute for wild-caught fish in the United States in 2006, but fraud involving pangasius susbitutes appeared in that market as early as 2002. Since then, the substitution of pangasius for more valuable products has increased. The next earliest cases of pangasius substitution were in Canada and Europe (2008), Egypt and South Africa (2013-2014), Brazil (2015) and India (2016).
Europe accounts for most of the cases of pangasius substitutions in Oceana’s analysis, replacing 3 percent of the 3,900 samples.
Oceana’s review found that one in five of the more than 25,000 samples of seafood tested worldwide was mislabeled and also that mislabeling occurred within every sector of the seafood supply chain. Seafood fraud was investigated in 55 countries and found on every continent except for Antarctica. Furthermore, 58 percent of the samples substituted for other seafood posed a species-specific health risk to consumers.
According to the European Commission (EC) , pangasius is the eight most popular seafood product in the EU, with a per capita consumption of 820g. However, overall demand for the product in the bloc is steadily waning amid increased supplies of other whitefish.
Exports from Vietnam, which is the EU’s main source of pangasius, totaled USD 133 million (EUR 118 million) in the first-half of this year, down 6.7 percent year-on-year.
