Something smells fishy in Brussels as diners duped

Every third dish of fish served to EU civil servants and Commissioners in their Brussels canteens is not what they ordered.

And for that matter, visitors to the EU capital’s famous fish restaurants are duped almost as often.

Irish fish-eaters, however, cannot be too smug at the gullibility of those in Belgium, since close to one in five pieces of fish they buy in supermarkets and fish mongers is not what it says on the pack.

The fishy deeds of the marine industry were uncovered by Oceana, an environmental body that specialises in keeping an eye on the sea and its products.

They had the Catholic University of Leuven carry out DNA tests on more than 280 samples of fish gathered in over 217 restaurants, 42 EU institution canteens, and 21 sushi bars a few months ago.

“DNA tests shows widespread seafood fraud in Brussels restaurants and even in official EU venues,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of Oceana in Europe. “Consumers are cheated and the door is left wide open to the laundering of illegal fishing products.

“The EU needs to clean up its fishy business, take responsibility and urgently improve traceability and labelling of seafood.”

European Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein said they would investigate the findings, saying that there were three companies selected through an open tendering process responsible for sourcing the food used in the canteens.

The study showed the fish most likely to be missed was tuna, with bluefin tuna on the menu being substituted for the much cheaper bigeye or yellowfin tuna in 95% of cases. This was most likely to happen in sushi bars.

Consumers ordering choice sole and cod, that sells for up to €40 in Brussels restaurants was, were likely to be served cheaper species in up to 13% of cases, with saith and pangasius being substituted for cod.

More worrying perhaps is the fact that three of the samples did not match any of the 11,000 fish species recorded in the international DNA database.

A 2011 review of fish labelling found that one fifth of fish sold in Irish shops was mislabelled mainly with cheaper saith sold as cod.

The EU introduced new labelling rules for fish earlier this year but this applies to shops and supermarkets to let consumers know if the fish was wild or farmed, fresh or frozen and exactly what species it is, where it came from and how it was caught. Restaurants are encouraged to volunteer similar information on their menus.

About 80% of fish eaten in the EU is caught in the wild and 65% is imported.