Major fish fraud uncovered in Brussels restaurants

Many restaurants in Brussels are selling customers a cheaper kind of fish than is listed on the menu, according to an investigation by the environmental organisation Oceana Europe.

The organisation took 280 samples of fish served in restaurants between March and July this year for analysis at the University of Leuven’s biodiversity department. The tests were meant to determine if the species on the plate matched what was on the menu. In 30% of the samples, it did not.

About three-quarters of the samples were taken from restaurants in the European quarter and the city centre, and 15% came from the restaurants within the European Parliament and Commission. The other 10% came from sushi restaurants.

Fraud occurred in 54% of sushi restaurants, 38% of European institutions and 29% of other restaurants. When customers ordered sole, cod or bluefin tuna, for instance, cheaper fish turned up on the plate in almost one in three cases.

“Restaurants cheated with bluefin tuna 95% of the time,” said Lasse Gustavsson, director of Oceana Europe. “This expensive species was replaced in 72% of the cases with yellow fin tuna and in 22% of cases with the over-fished bigeye tuna.”

There was also a lot of swapping out of sole (11% of cases) and cod (13%). “Sole is often replaced by other flat fish or by farmed freshwater fish. Cod is replaced by more than 10 different species, mainly pangasius, saithe and hake.”

Who exactly is responsible for the faulty labelling of the fish is not clear. “We don’t know at what level” the changes are made, Gustavsson said. “It could be it’s not the restaurant but the wholesaler that has used faulty labelling.”

Photo: Ingimage