26 per cent of seafood products have been mislabelled, according to research done by the National University of Singapore (NUS).
Among the samples the researchers collected, the most common items with the wrong labels include sablefish (sold as black cod), patagonian toothfish (sold as cod or seabass) and iridescent shark (sold as dory or bocourti).
The NUS researchers said that, overall, these substitutions are likely for financial gain, although some of the mislabelling might have been accidental.
For instance, a common market name for patagonian toothfish is Chilean seabass, which could have caused confusion during labelling.
Another example is how halibut has been sold as flounder. The researchers said that both are flat fish and it could be easy for an untrained eye to misidentify these two species.
The research — published on the academic journal Food Control and made available to the public on Jan 10 this year — was authored by Yale-NUS student Sean Neo, as well as Assistant Professor Wainwright and Dr Caroline Kibat from the college's division of science.
The researchers had collected 96 samples of pre-packed seafood products from 85 supermarkets and 11 restaurants located around Singapore between January and April 2021.
Out of the 96 samples, seven could not be identified. Of the remaining 89 samples, 23 were found to be mislabelled and all of them were from supermarkets.
One possible reason for the higher mislabelling rate among seafood products from supermarkets than those from restaurants is the source of these items, noted the researchers.
They said that 96 per cent of Singapore's seafood products are imported, and most are sold in supermarkets processed and pre-packed. The rest produced in the country, which tend to be of higher value and are not frozen or processed, are shipped to local restaurants.
However, the researchers also qualified that they collected fewer samples from restaurants than supermarkets.
They also did not find any mislabelling for salmon products; an earlier study by NUS published in October 2019 found that salmon was among some items that were labelled wrongly.
But the researchers highlighted that they used different DNA sequencing methods and that the samples were collected three years apart.
"These differences highlight the need for a standardised and repeated sampling strategy to fully understand the incidence of mislabelling and the impact that any policies designed to mitigate this practice have," read the study.
https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...s-found-be-labelled-wrongly-nus-study-1798186
