Not Just Floundering Around: A Post-Regulatory Framework to Address Seafood Substitution

Seafood substitution, the intentional or negligent mislabeling of fish and seafood, is estimated to cost American consumers over $25 billion per year. According to some studies, more than a third of the five billion pounds of seafood consumed in the United States is mislabeled when sold. Despite being virtually omnipresent throughout every level the US food supply chain, seafood substitution is rarely prosecuted due to a woeful mismatch between the scale of the problem and the resources dedicated to enforcement. This comment explores the pervasiveness of the fish fraud problem and the inadequacies of the current response before developing a “crowd-sourced” enforcement model to realign the economics of the seafood industry in order to reduce or eliminate consumer-facing seafood substation.