Aquaculture for all

Better Seafood Board Addressed New York Seafood Mislabelling

Sustainability Economics Food safety & handling +5 more

US - Following the finding of widespread seafood fraud in New York City, yesterday (11 December) the NBCs Today Show featured the Better Seafood Board (BSB), which aims to support members to abide by industry principles of economic integrity, as part of its discussion of seafood mislabelling in New York.

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NBC correspondent Anne Thompson says: To crack down on seafood fraud, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), an industry trade group, set up the Better Seafood Board. Its members promise to label seafood according to state and federal laws.

The BSB was created in 2007 and all NFI members are required to join. The segment also features NFI President, John Connelly, who tells Thompson: The companies that do things right feel a disadvantage when either their competitors or their customers mislabel a product for financial gain. Its just wrong.

Ms Thompson goes on to insist consumers need to ask questions of their servers or the person at the fish counter in order to protect themselves from seafood mislabeling.

Consumers should ask their restaurant or retailer if they are a member of the Better Seafood Board and if the answer is no, they should ask why not? says BSB Secretary Lisa Weddig. More and more national, mainstream media is recognising the BSB, its logo and its members as part of the solution to a widely reported-on challenge facing not only the seafood community but restaurants and retailers. BSB members are proud to be part of the solution.

Members of the BSB have differentiated themselves from others in the industry; they take a back seat to no one in fighting fish fraud.

A recently published study by Oceana has found that 39 per cent of the 142 seafood samples collected and DNA tested from grocery stores, restaurants and sushi venues were mislabeled, according to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines.

Further Reading

You can view the full Oceana report by clicking here.
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