DNA testing shows seafood mislabelling rife around Australia, prompting calls for stricter regulations
A study by a Perth-based philanthropic organisation has found, on average, nearly 12 per cent of common seafood products are not what they claim to be on the label or menu.
The research by Andrew and Nicola Forrest's Minderoo Foundation collected 672 seafood samples from supermarkets and restaurants around the country and tested the DNA to see if the product matched what it had been sold as.
"We selected seafood products which consumers tend to buy more of — hoki, prawns, shark, snapper, squid and tuna," Emily Harrison, ocean policy manager at the Minderoo Foundation, told Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Radio Perth.
"One in 10, or more specifically 11.8 per cent, of the products we found were mislabelled."
For some species, rates of mislabelling were far higher.
"Shark was actually the worst when it came to mislabelling … 35.9 per cent of shark we found was mislabelled, and snapper followed in close pursuit at 25.2 per cent," she said.
"In one restaurant that we sampled snapper from, we actually found it was parrot fish, which is still fine, but you're paying a premium for the snapper label and receiving a cheaper product."
In other cases, she said products were the species they claimed to be but so vaguely labelled that the consumer would not have had a true picture of what they were buying.
"In another case, in a restaurant, we sampled shark, and found it to be a smooth hammerhead," she said.
"Whilst technically that's not mislabelled, the vague name [didn't show that] this species of hammerhead is actually red listed as a vulnerable species by the IUCN [International Union for Conservation of Nature].
"Given the poor labelling that we have here and across Australia … consumers aren't able to make informed decisions on the seafood that they're consuming."
Ms Harrison said many consumers were unaware that 70 per cent of seafood consumed in Australia is imported, and suppliers were not legally required to provided detailed information about the products they brought in.
"There's little to no information actually captured at the border. We only consistently capture product type and product weight, and product type is not species type," she said.
"In WA you can have fish of the day or catch of the day or an umbrella term such as flake or shark [on the label] and not have that detailed species name, or disclose where it comes from and that's legally acceptable.
"The only place that actually requires that information is the Northern Territory."
Chief executive of the WA fishing industry council Darryl Hocking believed consumers could have high confidence in the labelling of locally caught fish.
However, he said he would welcome more stringent country-of-origin labelling laws and was unsurprised by the Minderoo research finding.
"We need to make sure that we differentiate between the imported and locally produced fish, and try to make sure that there's some integrity in the labelling regime to make sure that consumers have the confidence and are able to make an informed choice as to what they want to purchase," he said.
"I think we've already got a very strong system here [for locally caught fish]. Our concern is the labelling of imported fish as being local and potential substitution."
Trenton Brennan, who runs a fish and chop shop in Albany, on WA's south coast, believed substitution of fish was happening regularly.
"It's not happening at your fishmonger, but it 100 per cent happens more than you would think, at cafes, restaurants, fish and chip shops," he said.
"There's no regulation, I can put pretty much any fish on my board and sell it as anything and there's no checks and balances."
Mr Brennan said vague labelling often confused customers into believing imported fish was locally caught.
"I think that there needs to be legislation brought in that says if there's fish on the menu, it's got to be labelled with the Australian standard fish name, so we know you know exactly what it is," he said.
"You can't just write snapper. There's so many different species of snapper."
Ms Harrison said many other markets, including European Union, the United States and Japan, had more stringent documentation requirements for imported fish.
"Japan have just included a catch documentation scheme for their imported seafood that offers quite extensive traceability requirements to the point of sale, which I think should really be encouraged here in the Australian market," she said.
She also encouraged consumers to ask more questions when buying fish or ordering it from a restaurant menu.
"If it's super vague labelling, like 'catch of the day', push back on the vendor to ask what the species is, where it was from, and also where it was caught?" she said.
"If they can confidently answer those questions, I think consumers can feel empowered to make a decision if they want to purchase it or not."
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