25% of fish products labeled and sold as cod and haddock are from different species, research shows
According to research published by the Ecological Society of America, 1 in 4 (25%) of fish products labeled and sold as cod and haddock in Ireland belong to entirely different species of fish. When only smoked fish products were included in the sample, the University College Dublin scientists who completed the study claim that 8 in 10 (82%) were mislabeled under EU regulations.
The findings indicate that EU policies governing seafood labeling are not adequately implemented and enforced in Ireland and the EU. Under EU law, fresh fishery and aquaculture products offered for retail sale must be labeled with an approved commercial designation, the production method used and the area where the fish were caught.
Using DNA barcoding to identify the species of fish, School of Biology and Environmental scientists, Dana Miller and Stefano Mariani, tested samples of fish products labeled as cod and haddock purchased from supermarkets, fresh fish counters and ‘fish and chip’ shops.
“In light of recent findings from North American scientists using the same approach, it seems mislabeling seafood is pervasive on a global scale,” said Miller. “This, coupled with the enormous rise in seafood demand, raises alarm. There is an increasing need for effective and sustainable seafood industry management and especially for transparency within the seafood industry itself on an international level.”
“Consumers should be able to go to a shop and know they are eating what they paid for, especially when the product is purchased within the EU, where numerous policies relating to labeling and tracing are already in place,” said Mariani. The authors argue that these findings suggest mislabeling could contribute to overfishing—that is, mislabeling cod in Ireland could be creating a false perception of market availability.
“There are many problems associated with mislabeling fish, like in the case of mislabeling the depleted red snapper to enhance perceptions of availability in the U.S.,” continued Miller. “Consumers may think that if ‘cod’ keeps showing up in markets and restaurants across Ireland, the stocks must be healthy.”
The fish samples the researchers tested included smoked, fried, battered, fresh and frozen cod and haddock. Approximately 25% of these samples turned out to be cod labeled as haddock or vice versa, or a completely different species of fish altogether, such as pollack, whiting or saithe, mislabeled as cod or haddock or even Pacific cod being labeled as Atlantic cod.
“We focused on cod (Gadus morhua) and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) because whitefish is the second most consumed seafood in Ireland – behind farmed salmon - and the similarities in appearance of filleted whitefish make it difficult to distinguish one species from another,” says Dr Stefano Mariani, who led the study.
To identify the correct species, the scientists extracted tissue from each sample and entered the gene sequences into the Barcode of Life Data Systems online at www.barcodinglife.org; the researchers also cross-referenced the sequence with other databases. The study includes a complete list of all analyzed fish, as they were labeled and identified.
“With the rapid advances in bioinformatics, the traceability of fish stocks will be more affordable and available,” said Mariani. “This will hopefully make enforcing the proper labeling of fish easier and will subsequently encourage transparency in the fishing industry. With a restored trust in retailers and policymakers, the seafood industry can be turned into a sustainable operation on a global scale.”
The full scientific article entitled: “Smoke, mirrors and mislabelled cod: poor transparency in the European seafood industry” was published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a journal of the Ecological Society of America on Thursday 22 April 2010.