Fishy practices to blame as fake hake floods the market

Hake from Argentina, and hake from Chile. But also halibut and torpedo scad. Some 8.6 percent of the fish sold in Spain as merluza del Cantábrico (European hake, Merluccius merluccius) is not the real McCoy. Subspecies that are cheaper (such as the Argentinean variety, Merluccius hubbsi) - costing as little as half as much, and of lower quality - or even other species that are not hake at all, are sold as if they were.

Such is the conclusion of an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which has analyzed the DNA of 150 specimens from various consignments purchased in the Madrid region. The sampling, studied in the laboratories of the University of Oviedo, concentrated on Madrid as having the world's second-largest fish market. The national authorities consider that this is not a public health problem, speaking of "commercial fraud" and "faulty labeling."

These errors have led department store El Cortes Inglés to withdraw and destroy a 1.4-ton consignment of frozen fish from its Aliada brand, labeled as Argentinean hake, when it was another fish commonly called merluza de cola, but which is not even of the same species. It's a fish of lesser quality, and is much cheaper, according to University of Oviedo experts.

The department store chain, whose own analyses confirmed the ICIJ results, maintains that the error proceeds from the source, and is due to the fact that both types are fished in the same fishery zone, Fao 41, in the South Atlantic.

The investigative report, signed by Mar Cabra, Marcos García Rey and Kate Wilson, detected errors such as this, or more serious ones, in both fresh and frozen fish sold in supermarket chains such as Alcampo, Carrefour and Eroski, and in smaller retailers too, such as the reputed El Bierzo, in the Mostenses market near the Plaza de España in Madrid. Here was one of the clearest cases: panga (a very cheap halibut-like fish caught off Vietnam, and sometimes suspect of contamination) was being sold as hake. An "isolated" case, according to the manager of the shop, who suggests that the panga "may have got mixed up with the area where the hake is."

The supermarket chains speak of occasional human error, pointing to strict quality controls to certify the products they sell. However, in the Alcampo freezers two lots of wrongly labeled products were found, proceeding from the exporter Freiremar. One identified as hake what was really torpedo scad, a fish seldom eaten in Spain, and of lesser value. An error that Freiremar, according the report, has not yet explained. The exporter called Alcampo to withdraw the consignment "as a precaution" to make its own tests. The fish, however, had already been sold.

An Alcampo spokesman, who says that explanations have been demanded of Freiremar, notes that a 57-kilo lot from the same exporter has been withdrawn and is being analyzed.

The minister of health and consumer affairs, Leire Pajín, points out that such cases do not involve a risk to public health, and are more in the nature of "commercial fraud," in a country that has the world's highest per capita consumption of hake.

Meanwhile the identification of most fish is complicated by the fact that the popular name of the same species may vary every 50 miles along the coast. The Spanish Fisheries Confederation suggests that the scientific name of the species should appear on the label, so that you will not pay a merluccius merluccius price for a pack of frozen merluccius hubbsi.