Casting a Wider Net: More Action Needed to Stop Seafood Fraud in the United States
Authors: Oceana  , Warner Kimberly , Roberts Whitney , Mustain Patrick , Lowell Beth , Swain Marissa 
Published: March 2019

Executive SummaryIf you order red snapper at a restaurant, you should get red snapper. If you found out it was something else, you would rightly be angry. But what if you also found out that the fish you ate may have been caught illegally, or had been imported when you thought it was caught locally? Seafood mislabeling can also cover up fish caught or raised with fishing or farming methods that can harm the environment. Overfished species can be labeled as more abundant varieties and cheaper offerings can be sold as more expensive ones to fetch a higher price. Seafood fraud cheats consumers and hurts fishermen and businesses that play by the rules.To highlight and address these problems, Oceana has investigated seafood fraud since 2010, testing more than 1,500 samples for DNA identification. In these studies, Oceana found roughly one-third of samples tested were mislabeled. Oceana brought this issue to the public’s attention and urged the government to act.In 2014, the federal government established the Task Force on Combating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing and Seafood Fraud. The task force issued recommendations that ultimately led to the establishment of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) in 2018. SIMP requires catch reporting and traceability for 13 types of imported seafood at risk of seafood fraud and illegal fishing. However, the traceability requirements end at the U.S. border.To expose gaps in the current policy, Oceana launched a nationwide investigation of some popular seafood types not covered by the program. Oceana employees and volunteers collected more than 400 samples from over 250 locations in 24 states and the District of Columbia, including restaurants, large grocery stores and smaller markets. Despite the new program, Oceana discovered seafood mislabeling remains a problem in the United States.Key Findings:• One out of every 5 of the 449 fish tested (21 percent) were mislabeled.• Some of the most commonly collected seafood types in the study, sea bass and snapper, had the highest rates of mislabeling (55 and 42 percent, respectively).• One out of 3 establishments visited sold at least one item of mislabeled seafood.• Seafood was more frequently mislabeled at restaurants and smaller markets than at the larger chain grocery stores.• Some popular regional favorites, such as local Great Lakes yellow perch, were found to be imported fish like zander, a species from Europe and Asia.• Some depleted fish species that are not sustainably caught were labeled and sold as more sustainable fish (e.g. overfished Atlantic halibut sold as more abundant Pacific halibut).Seafood fraud remains an issue, including for many species that are not covered by the federal traceability regulations. Oceana recommends that those rules be expanded, requiring catch documentation detailing when, where and how a fish was caught or farmed for all seafood. This and other important information should follow the fish through every step of the supply chain from where it was caught to the final point of sale. Consumers should be provided with more information about the seafood they eat, including exactly which species they purchased. This is the only way U.S. consumers can know that their seafood is safe, legally caught and honestly labeled.