Are we sure we eat what we buy? Fish mislabelling in Buenos Aires province, the largest sea food market in Argentina

GABRIELA DELPIANI; SERGIO M. DELPIANI; M. Y. DELI ANTONI; M. COVATTI; L. FISCHER; LUIS O. LUCIFORA; JUAN M. DÍAZ DE ASTARLOA

FISHERIES RESEARCH

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2019 vol. 221 p. 105373 - 105373

0165-7836

The detection of substituted or mislabeled seafood may havedifferent consequences on consumers and the environment, includingeconomic losses due to potential commercial fraud, public health effects,uncontrolled impacts on fish species of threatened status, and damage topopulations due to overfishing. The molecular identification of processedmeat or specimens that lack diagnostic body parts is a highly effectivetool for species identification and law enforcement. DNA barcoding wasused to assess levels of mislabeling or substitution through molecularidentification of fresh fish fillets sold in different seafood marketsthroughout the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The totalsubstitution rate was 21.34% with most of the replacements involvingChondrichthyes (22 of the 35 mislabeled fillets), mainly the sharksGaleorhinus galeus (8 times) and Mustelus schmitii (9 times) being soldas something else. These results highlight the problems generated bymislabelling, to a great extent an economic problem (fraud), and also aconservation problem, due to the exploitation of threatened species. Thepresent study reinforces a calling for enlarged traceability of foodproducts and the assessment of authenticity of fillets by skilledsupervisory authorities.