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Seafood is required by law to be labeled in a manner that is truthful and not misleading to the consumer. An important aspect of truthful labeling is identifying seafood species by their acceptable market names and species. Incorrect use of an established acceptable market name that results in the labeling being false and/or misleading can result in the product being misbranded under section 403(a)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act (21 U.S.C. 343(a)(1)).

Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, seafood must be labeled truthfully and not mislead consumers. Products that don’t comply are considered misbranded, which can result in FDA regulatory action such as a civil money penalty, no-sale order, seizure, and/or injunction. All companies involved in handling these items in question: manufacturers, packers, distributors, and retailers are responsible for guaranteeing that they are not selling an adulterated or misbranded product to consumers.

Some species such as red snapper, grouper, wild salmon and Atlantic cod, could be mislabeled as much as 70 percent of the time. Escolar used as white tuna, Vietnamese basa/swai being used instead of domestic catfish or flounder, cod replaced with lower-priced hake instead. Once many species are filleted and skinned, it can be very difficult to distinguish between the two. Lower cost fish such as tilapia might be labeled as a higher-priced grouper. In other cases, the same fish may be marketed under different regional names or the name may be changed to something more familiar to consumers, even though that name is a different species (such as imported snapper labeled as gulf coast red snapper).

This type of fraud has tarnished our industry and caused financial loss to companies that operate within the required laws.