An overview of environmental labelling and claims on fish and seafood products in New Zealand supermarkets

Abstract

The environmental impact of consuming seafood is receiving increasing attention. However, in New Zealand, environmental claims on food products are not regulated in the Food Standards Code. The objective of this study is to describe labelling practices, including environmental claims, on fish and other seafood products available in New Zealand. In total, 369 fish and seafood products from 2022 were analysed from Nutritrack–a database of food products available from major New Zealand supermarkets. For each product, labelling information, as well as the number and type of environmental claims were extracted from archived photographs of all sides of the product packages. Self-declared environmental claims were evaluated against the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14021:2016 standard for environmental claims. About half (48.4%) of the products did not state the harvest location, 8.7% did not state the processing location and 92.6% did not state the harvest method. We identified 33 distinct self-declared environmental claims displayed on a total of 152 packaged seafood products, with 78.8% classified as unclear, and therefore in breach of the ISO standard. This study suggests that stronger regulation around seafood labelling is needed in New Zealand, to provide consumers transparent, accurate and substantiated information.