January 8, 2019 โ Less than a month after the New York Attorney Generalโs office said it found โrampantโ seafood mislabeling at New York supermarkets, one of the retailers involved faces a potential class action lawsuit.
In mid-December, the New York Attorney Generalโs office said it found that around a quarter of the seafood sampled at New York grocery retailers was mislabeled. While Oceana and universities have studied retail seafood mislabeling, the New York AGโs report is the first major U.S. government investigation of seafood fraud within supermarket chains.
The AG office found that a small subset of supermarket brands โ Food Bazaar, Foodtown, Stew Leonardโs, Uncle Giuseppeโs, and Western Beef โ were responsible for a โvastly disproportionate share of suspected mislabelingโ in New York.
Now, Shelby Franklin, a New York consumer, is suing Norwalk, Connecticut-based Stew Leonardโs over its allegedly mislabeled wild sockeye salmon and red snapper.
The class action complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleges that Stew Leonardโs โroutinely took advantage of consumersโ preferences for certain fish species and characteristics by labeling and passing off low-demand, less healthy, and less environmentally-friendly fish as more desirable, healthier, and more sustainable varieties of fish.โ