Report | October, 2019

Mislabelled: Montreal Investigation Results and How to Fix Canada’s Seafood Fraud Problem

 

DNA testing of seafood samples from retailers across Montreal in 2019 revealed that Canada’s second largest city has one of the highest rates of mislabelling found in a Canada-wide investigation: a shocking 61 per cent of samples were either a substituted species or didn’t meet the labelling requirements set out by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

This testing contributes to Oceana Canada’s national, multi-year investigation – the most comprehensive study of seafood fraud and mislabeling at grocery stores and restaurants ever conducted in Canada. It has shown that almost half of 472 samples – 47 per cent – collected in six Canadian cities from 2017-2019 were mislabelled.