April 18, 2007

 

UK uncovers fish scams and other fraudulent meat sales

 

 

Farmed fish are being falsely sold as "wild" in a widespread scam that may costing consumers millions, research from the Food Standards Agency in the UK has revealed.

 

An investigation by the agency found that salmon, sea bass and sea bream, thought to be caught from the sea, had in fact been reared from farms.

 

Wild fish usually fetch twice the prices of farmed fish. Wild salmon is triple the price of farmed ones.

 

The Food Standards Agency confirmed that advance findings indicated that such scams were taking place, but said further work was required before the full report would be available. The full report is expected over the next two weeks, the Food Standards Agency said.

 

Advance findings indicated that there were fraudulent selling and labelling in particular markets, a source close to the investigation said.

 

Wild fish are thought to make better ingredients. That and animal welfare concerns on fish farms have prompted more demand for wild fish.

 

The belief that wild fish is better in quality due to their varied diets have promoted wild fish sales, whereas rumours that farmed fish suffer from sea lice problems and were fed artificial growth promoters drove people towards wild fish.

 

The fact that farmed fish and wild fish looks entirely similar makes it hard for consumers to distinguish between the two. Only scientists looking at the chemical make up of the cells in the fish were able to tell the difference due to their different diets.

 

It was through such scientific checking that the scams were uncovered.

 

Scams over farmed food have been emerging in the UK recently, the most recent one over eggs from caged hens sold as free-range eggs. The scam may have cost UK consumers millions in dollars as it was believed to have been going on for the last five years. 

 

Another scam involved "corn-fed" chicken which were simply normal chickens dyed yellow.

 

The FSA is also investigating fraud in beef, in which premium brands sometimes turned out to be low-quality beef imported from South America.