Oceana Study Reveals Misrepresentation of America’s Favorite Seafood

Yikes!

Oceana Study Reveals Misrepresentation of America’s Favorite Seafood.

“I’ve seen cute little cleaner shrimp in aquariums and while scuba diving, but never expected to find one on a grocery shelf,’” said Dr. Kimberly Warner, report author and senior scientist at Oceana. “We really know very little about the shrimp we eat, and the information we do get may not be trustworthy. Consumers have a right to know more about the shrimp they purchase in order to make more responsible choices.”

Among the report’s other key findings include:

• The most common species substitution was farmed whiteleg shrimp sold as “wild” shrimp and “Gulf” shrimp.

• Forty percent of the 20 shrimp species or categories collected and identified were not previously known to be sold in the U.S.

• No samples labeled as “farmed” were mislabeled, while over half of the samples labeled simply “shrimp” were actually a wild-caught species.

• A banded coral “shrimp,” which is an aquarium pet not intended to be consumed as food, was found commingled with another unidentified shrimp in a bag of frozen salad-sized shrimp purchased in the Gulf.

• Overall, 30% of over 400 shrimp products surveyed in grocery stores lacked information on country-of-origin, 29% lacked farmed/wild information and one in five did not provide either.

• The majority of the 600 restaurant menus surveyed did not provide the diner with any information on the type of shrimp, whether it was farmed/wild or its origin.