Misdescription incidents in seafood sector

- The average percentage of reported misdescription is 30%.
- Misdescription incidents are significantly greater in restaurants than retailers.
- Gadoids, flatfish and salmonids comprise almost the 60% of the total.
- Future surveys should be focused on other commercial species.

Seafood consumption has increased worldwide in the last 50 years considering both wild catches and aquaculture production. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the majority of world fisheries is at maximum exploitation levels or over-exploited. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is contributing to overfishing, as well as intentional or unintentional mislabeling of fish catches or their geographical origin. DNA identification methods can contribute to monitor mislabeling, mainly when dealing with processed seafood or morphologically similar species. It cannot be ignored that seafood mislabeling can also have food safety implications, due to the presence of toxic substances directly related to certain species or to the catch area. In this context, a review has been conducted analyzing scientific reports related to seafood mislabeling incidents published in the last five years to try to identify the level of real mislabeling, as well as, the more relevant gaps in this area. A total of 51 peer-reviewed papers including 4500 samples analyzed globally by DNA methodologies have been taken into account. The average percentage of reported misdescription is 30%. In general, incidents in restaurants and takeaways are much more common than in supermarkets and retailers. Therefore, specific studies should be conducted to confirm it because only 10% of analyzed samples were obtained from restaurants. In addition, we have observed a remarkable absence of appropriate sampling plans prior to sample collection.