February 5, 2014 — Did you ever wonder if a restaurant's crabcake was made with Maryland crab or some foreign import? Or if that was really red snapper you bought, or an impostor?
A bill introduced Wednesday in Annapolis would make it illegal for restaurants or markets to mislabel the seafood they sell, and moreover would require them to specify where their crabmeat came from.
"If I go to a restaurant and order a 'Maryland-style' crabcake, I'd like to know if it's made with Venezuelan crabmeat," said Del. Eric G. Luedtke, the bill's sponsor.
Luedtke, a Montgomery County Democrat, said investigations have found a significant share of seafood sold in restaurants is mislabeled. Such bait-and-switch winds up costing consumers more, he said, and sometimes can even have health consequences.
A study by Oceana, a Washington-based conservation group, found through DNA testing that one-third of more than 1,200 seafood items bought in stores nationwide were mislabeled, according to guidelines form the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In the Washington area, 26 percent of fish was mislabeled, the group said. Snapper and tuna were among the most frequently misidentified products.