Some customers buying a traditional helping of fish and chips are being served catfish instead of the usual cod without being aware. Rising costs – made worse by the Iran war – are being blamed
Rogue takeaways are passing off catfish as “traditional fish and chips” to cut down on the costs of a chippy tea, it has been claimed.
Customers wanting a fish supper are being served a species known as pangasius or river cobbler, without being fully aware of what they are buying. Cases of fish being mis-sold or misdescribed are hard to detect since any investigations are intelligence-led and rely on expensive DNA testing.
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute said that while the mis-selling or misdescription of fish at takeaways was not a widespread issue it acknowledged “there are still some unscrupulous businesses”.
Catfish, which is safe to eat, is generally farmed and imported from South East Asia. It is significantly cheaper, at about £3.40 per kilogram wholesale, than traditional species such as cod and haddock which typically go for £15 per kilogram.
The finding comes as a leading figure in the potato industry warned we won’t see the worst of the prices until next year as the effects of the war in Iran hit home.
Scott Walker, the chief executive of GB Potatoes, said the way the industry works means the impact of war-linked costs will be delayed, with “inevitable” increases in 2027
The fish and chip shop industry faces an immediate threat due to rising costs for energy, cooking oil and fish. The investigation into catfish being served was prompted by the owner of a Liverpool chip shop complaining about the dishonest practice.
He told the BBC: “This goes on more than you’d think and it’s putting people like me at a disadvantage.”
Ten businesses, five in Liverpool and five in Manchester, were identified for sample tests. Three of the chip shops listed cod on the menu, four listed haddock and three listed just ‘fish’.
If asked, a business is legally obliged to inform a customer of the species. The three which did not list a species said they were ‘normal fish’ or ‘white fish’.
DNA testing at Liverpool John Moores University revealed that all three takeaways had sold catfish.
Professor Stefano Mariani, who oversaw the tests with his colleague Catherine Perfect, said: “We used DNA barcoding to identify the species, and we found three out of the 10 samples were pangasius – often known as river cobbler on the market, a type of tropical freshwater catfish.”
In my experience with fish and chips, three out of 10 is quite a lot – I don’t recall seeing this level of catfish.”
The portions of catfish were bought for £3.80, £4.20 and £5. Servings of cod or haddock were sold for between £4 and £6.
Asked whether a customer could tell the difference, Prof Mariani said: “It is very difficult for a member of the public that is not a trained fish biologist to identify one fillet from another.”
National Trading Standards said fish being sold under the wrong name was a “food labelling issue”. It said it would be the responsibility of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to investigate. The FSA advised that local authorities would likely lead on isolated cases of fish and chip shops misselling items.
