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A new study shows that up to a quarter of the seafood sold in Metro Vancouver is mislabelled, with tilapia masquerading as snapper and catfish passing as cod.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia collected 281 samples of fish and other seafood from restaurants and grocery stores, then tested the DNA to determine the true species.
A study published in the journal Food Control found that 70 of the samples, or 25 per cent, had been mislabelled either accidentally or intentionally.
The study's lead author, PhD candidate Yaxi Hu, says the global supply chain is very complicated and a fish can pass through many countries before it hits a supermarket, so it's difficult to tell when or why a sample was mislabelled.
She says the research is comparable to a study done by UBC a decade ago, and she's surprised that there has been little change over the past 10 years.
Hu says researchers would like see more information on store labels, including the scientific names of the fish and where the product was caught.
