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Dear Friends, my expose on global seafood fraud finally came out in The Guardian this week. It was one of the most viewed pieces in The Guardian that gets tens of millions of views every day. Numerous other media reproduced the story including Food and Wine, NY Daily News, Baltimore Chronicle, MSN, Yahoo News, FR24 and dozens of other sites.
My followup piece on how to solve the problem of fish fraud didn’t get nearly the same attention. People say they want to see less doom and gloom in the news but solutions articles aren’t as popular. Here’s the back story on how both articles came to be.
I thought the problem of mislabeled fish in supermarkets and restaurants was sorted more than 10 years ago. Around 2009-2010 there were a long series of media exposes about seafood fraud. One of which included high school kids who sent samples of fish and fish products to a lab for DNA analysis. It was huge media story around the world.
Need-to-Know 1: DNA Barcoding
By finding unique markers in a species DNA, researchers can 100% identify that species. Specifically DNA barcoding, developed at the University of Guelph in Ontario, involves sequencing a short, specific section of a particular gene from a sample. That is then compared to the library of barcodes from known species.
DNA barcoding is widely accepted and the costs of using it have dropped tremendously.
Need-to-Know 2: Seafood industry doesn’t use DNA Barcoding.
A year ago I was working on an article about Indigenous salmon fishing in British Columbia. One community was in partnership with a small Vancouver fish processor who was the first, and apparently the only company, to use DNA verification of their product. I thought it unnecessary but a good marketing strategy.
Need-to-Know 3: Nearly one in two fish samples mislabeled.
And then I looked to see if mislabeling was still a problem and soon found a recent study from Canada where nearly one in two fish samples from food retailers and restaurants weren’t what the label said they were.
Exposing seafood fraud on a vast global scale
Was this just happening in Canada? Nope. After months of research and analysis I found out that 36% of seafood samples from restaurants, fishmongers and supermarkets in more than 30 countries were mislabeled. My investigation was limited to studies done in the last three years to show this continues to be a serious issue.
Need-to-Know 4: +30 countries, 9000 samples —36% mislabelled
Fraud findings from a few studies:
Prawn balls that did not contain any prawn or other crustacean but lots of pork
Nearly 70% of fish sold as snapper were actually 38 different fish species
40 to 50% of fish from 180 restaurants across 23 countries in Europe weren’t what was claimed on the menu
20% of the imported seafood tested at an airport were mislabeled; the mislabeling increased to 27% at wholesaler level, and 40% at retail level
Here’s the results of a regional analysis:
Need-to-Know 5: Health risks of fish fraud
One frequent substitute for some varieties of tuna is escolar, a hard-to-digest oilfish, known as the laxative of the seas. Others have unique parasites that may threaten health. Still others are less nutritious: when tilapia is a stand-in for red snapper, people are eating a fish with lower levels of nutrients, including lower omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.
Need-to-Know 6: Cheaper fish substituted for higher priced ones
Nearly always it is a lower value fish that stands in for a higher value one. There’s a lot of money to be made and little chance of getting caught researchers told me.
Need-to-Know 7: Big money to be made. No one’s getting caught
Fish laundering
“Laundering” illegally caught fish through mislabeling is big business and organized crime is involved some believe. A 2020 study estimated that between 8 million and 14 million tonnes of fish are caught illegally every year. Rashid Sumaila, a fisheries economist at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia told me:
“That’s like 15 to 20 million cows being stolen every year” in terms of weight.
“It’s very corrosive,” he said.
“If not stopped, illegal fishing just grows.”
Previously in Need to Know:
Don't Put Down Your Covid Shield
Five #COVID variant protection tips:
Two masks better than one
Safe socializing and bubble/pod life
Keeping your distance - 6 feet may not be enough
Mask up outside
Let local case rates determine your activities
Acknowledging a problem is only the first step
The seafood fraud article was the second most viewed article on The Guardian’s entire website. My follow up story the next day on solutions, Fish detectives: the sleuths using ‘e-DNA’ to fight seafood fraud, was hardly read at all by comparision. I think it is a more interesting story. It shows how a small Vancouver company has random DNA testing done by a lab at the University of Guelph. The same lab does work for Canada’s food inspection agency and so the agency is well aware of the problem but have failed to act. The story also looks at why the European Union’s best-in-class verification system is failing and what could be done about it.
Need-to-Know 8: EU’s best-in-class verification system failing
How to make sure you get the fish you paid for
1. Advocate for Boat-to-Plate Traceability
Regulations are needed to ensure accurate tracking and identification from harvest to the point of sale with enforcement spot checks along the supply chain using DNA barcoding.
Canada committed to setting up traceability standards in 2019, it has yet to act on this. The EU and US do have these but rarely use DNA barcoding
2. Buy Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or similar certified products
A recent study used DNA barcoding to verify that 99% of 1,409 of MSC products sampled between 2009 and 2016 were correctly labeled
There’s also a green ASC (Aquaculture Stewardship Council) label for farmed products
3. Before buying ask about your fish
Trusted retailers should be able to tell you how they know the label accurately reflects what’s inside the package. Restaurants should be comfortable explaining the fish’s journey to your plate.
4. Use The Good Fish Guide app
There’s 12,000 different fish products and a fish like sole can have a dozen different names. The Good Fish Guide will help you find which are the most sustainable (Green rated), and which are the least sustainable (Red rated). It’s produced by the Marine Conservation Society
Until public pressure is brought to bear on the market, truly transparent companies will remain outliers researcher Donna-Mareè Cawthorn who has done a number of studies on fish fraud.
“It’s not just a few bad guys,” Cawthorn told me. “The global seafood industry is dysfunctional. That makes it very difficult to manage fish stocks sustainably.”
Need-to-Know 9: Can’t protect the oceans when seafood industry is dysfunctional
Illegal fishing, and mislabeling, along with climate change are major reasons why the oceans are in trouble and why most fish populations around the world are in decline.
Need-to-know 10: We know more about wine than seafood
“It’s interesting that many people know, and care more, about the provenance of the wine they drink than the seafood they eat,” observed Cawthorn.
Until next time, please stay strong and stay safe.
Stephen
Good investigation worth noting. I'm in ON, not a seafood eater by choice. Then I saw documentary Seaspiracy this week and it put me deep in despair. The seafood industry is rogue, that's all there is to it.