February 11, 2016 — Does your livelihood depend on seafood production? If so, it would naturally follow that mislabelling of that seafood after it leaves your hands is of utmost concern to you.
Wild capture and aquaculture sources of global seafood production share this concern about their product, but what are studies released late last year on seafood mislabelling and fraud really telling us?
Improved labeling
The most recent study carried out on seafood mislabelling in the European Atlantic region suggests the recent trend is downwards and one of the main causes is the widespread media attention paid to the issue in the last four years. This has led to higher consumer awareness and improved labelling in fish markets trying to save their reputation. Also contributing to recently measured low rates of mislabelling are the strict new seafood labelling laws set out by the EC/EU in December 2014. The study led by Labelfish scientist Stefano Mariani published in December 2015 claimed an overall mislabelling rate of just 4.9 % of 1,265 samples taken in 19 European cities.
The 285 samples taken in Brussels from March to July in 2015 in search of fraud is Oceana’s first foray into European sampling of seafood. The study – leading to headlines last November claiming 33.9% seafood fraud of fish in Brussels – was in fact the ocean advocacy group’s first study outside America exploring what they most often refer to as seafood fraud.