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A SURVEY by Ireland's Food Safety Authority has found that an increasing amount of fish is being mislabelled. And the suggestion is that some retailers and restaurants are deliberately misleading customers to increase their profits during the country's recession.
The problem is not exclusive to Ireland - in the UK trading standards officers are discovering an increasing number of fish shops - both fresh and fried - have been passing cod off as Pangasius or Vietnamese catfish. And in the United States there have been several high profile prosecutions where fish traders have been doing much the same thing.
But the Irish situation is giving the country's food authorities some cause for concern.Out of the 111 samples analysed, 20 were found to be mislabelled as cod and one was mislabelled as smoked haddock. Eight out of 11 smoked fish samples were also found to be mislabelled.
The Food Safety Authority's chief executive Professor Alan Reilly, said that while there is no food safety issue involved, the fact that cod, which is generally viewed as an expensive fish, has been found to contain less expensive varieties, raises a concern for consumers. “This activity can be viewed as food businesses increasing their own profit margins by misleading consumers," he said.“If a consumer wants to buy a piece of cod, it should be a piece of cod they are buying, and not some other fish."
The problem is not new. A year ago research published by the Ecological Society of America, found that one in four fish products labelled and sold as cod and haddock in Ireland belonged 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 were mislabelled under EU regulations.
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