July 23, 2012 — The largest nonprofit focused on the health of our oceans is finding seafood fraud everywhere it looks – in Los Angeles, 55% of seafood is mislabeled, and in Boston it's 48% and in South Florida it's 31%.
In a report released last year, Bait and Switch: How Seafood Fraud Hurts Our Oceans, Our Wallets and Our Health, Oceana found that while 84% of the seafood eaten in the US is imported, only 2% is inspected and less than 0.001% specifically for fraud.
In fact, recent studies find that seafood may be mislabeled as often as 25-70% of the time for fish like red snapper, wild salmon and Atlantic cod, disguising species that are less desirable, cheaper or more readily available.
Oceana confirmed through DNA testing that seafood mislabeling is unacceptably high in samples collected at grocery stores, restaurants and sushi venues, among other retail outlets.
"Our results suggest that nationwide, people may be receiving a completely different fish than what they're paying for," says Dr. Kimberly Warner, senior scientist at Oceana. "Not only does seafood fraud cheat consumers and hurt honest seafood businesses, it also puts our health at risk and undermines efforts to eat sustainably."
Despite ongoing efforts by local and state authorities to combat seafood fraud over the past 30 years, mislabeling rates have remained between 15-31%.
In South Florida, Oceana targeted species with regional significance and those that were found to be mislabeled from previous studies, including red and yellowtail snapper, grouper, wild salmon, yellowtail and white tuna.
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