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Antonovich Offers Warning Against Mislabeled Seafood

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Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich announced Monday that the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Seafood Task force found that of the 103 retail food facilities inspected, including 66 restaurants and 37 food markets, 74 percent of the facilities investigated had label misbranding or false advertising on menus and over 180 violations.

In addition to substituting crawfish for lobster, other examples of mislabeling found in the study included: selling farm-raised salmon as wild salmon, fluke or turbot for halibut, seabream, pollack and tilapia substituted for snapper, fluke substituted for halibut, and imitation crab, abalone and octopus sold as the real product.

“One of the more dangerous examples of mislabeling included escolar is being sold as ‘white tuna’; however, there is no such fish as ‘white tuna’ and some individuals may be allergic to escolar,” said Antonovich.

The Task Force, initiated by Supervisor Antonovich, was a collaborative effort by the County Department of Public Health, the California Department of Food and Drug branch and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration adopted by the Board of Supervisors to address the growing nationwide problem of seafood mislabeling.

“Residents need to know what they were paying for — and we are committed to ensuring that suppliers and retailers practice truth-in-advertising,” said Antonovich.

Antonovich Offers Warning Against Mislabeled Seafood

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About Perry Smith

Perry Smith is a print and broadcast journalist who has won several awards for his focused, hyperlocal community coverage in several different regions of the country. In addition to five years of experience covering the Santa Clarita Valley, Smith, a San Fernando Valley native, has worked in newspapers and news websites in Los Angeles, the Northwest, the Central Valley and the South, before coming to KHTS in 2012. To contact Smith, email him at Perry@hometownstation.com.