Seafood fraud: Are your fish fishy?

Seafood is an iconic staple of our summer diets, but that shrimp on your po’boy may not be what it seems.

Despite promises of “fresh Gulf seafood” on menus across the country, many diners are unknowingly served imported products falsely labeled as local catch.  

Stark evidence of this came just last year, when an iconic Mississippi restaurant shocked the Gulf Coast by pleading guilty to selling more than 29 tons of mislabeled seafood, which led to a fine of more than $1 million and a prison sentence for the manager of the restaurant’s seafood distributor. The restaurant served what it called fresh Gulf seafood, like red snapper and grouper, when it was actually selling cheaper foreign imports to unwitting customers.  

This was not an isolated incident, but a warning sign.  

This type of seafood fraud dupes consumers, hides health risks and hurts honest fishermen and seafood businesses. It can occur anywhere throughout the complex seafood supply chain, especially with gaps in traceability requirements for the seafood we import. Without robust traceability systems and consumer labeling in place, dishonest actors can swap out species, hide origins, and lie about catch methods with little fear of being caught.  

This makes it more important than ever for the government to protect consumers and domestic fishermen. Due to shortcomings with the current seafood traceability program in the United States, seafood lovers, businesses and domestic fishermen aren’t comprehensively shielded from fraud.   

States are taking matters into their own hands, and this is especially true on the Gulf Coast. The case in Mississippi led the Magnolia State to adopt a law that went into effect in July requiring all seafood and crawfish sold in every restaurant, grocery store, market and food truck be labeled as either “imported” or “domestic.” Violators face fines of up to $10,000 or up to six months in jail.  

Louisiana and Alabama recently adopted similar laws, and Texas is following suit with a new shrimp-labeling law set to go into effect in September. Now, when you sit down at a restaurant in one of these places, you will be closer to knowing what’s actually on your plate.    

A Southern Shrimp Alliance seafood fraud analysis showed the distinct difference between states that have implemented seafood labeling laws and those that have not. In states that lack restaurant labeling laws, a jaw-dropping 75 percent of restaurants where seafood was tested appeared to offer U.S. wild-caught shrimp when they were selling imported, farm-raised products. That number was 34 percent in the states where seafood labeling laws are in place.  

Although these regional attempts at solutions matter, we know that seafood fraud is an interstate and international problem. State-level fixes are important, but patchwork policies can’t keep up with a product that crosses oceans and borders. The only real solution is strong, nationwide traceability. This includes catch documentation with key information about the origins of our seafood that is tracked from the farm or net to the final point of sale — making it harder to mislabel or defraud customers.  

Fortunately, we already have a tool in place: the Seafood Import Monitoring Program, which requires documentation and traceability for certain at-risk species of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, as well as seafood fraud. But this program currently covers less than half of all imported seafood. That’s a gaping hole in our food safety and enforcement system. Expanding it to cover all seafood imports, and enforcing it with robust oversight, would help reduce seafood fraud and keep illegal fishing products from our supply chain.   

This isn’t just about consumer protection; it’s about economic fairness and national food security. The U.S. seafood industry supports 1.6 million jobs and contributes billions to our economy. Our fishers do dangerous, vital work to feed the nation, and their livelihoods are threatened by seafood with a fake backstory and a falsified label.   

We must ensure that all of the seafood coming into our country is safe, legally caught, responsibly sourced and honestly labeled. That requires end-to-end traceability — from the point of catch to the final point of sale — coupled with consumer labeling laws to guarantee that consumers, regulators and businesses alike have access to critical data about their seafood.   

It’s the only way we can truly know what’s on our plate and how it got there.   

Max Valentine, Ph.D., is the campaign director and senior scientist for Oceana’s illegal fishing and transparency campaign in the United States.