Brussels restaurants still serving mislabelled seafood ten years after Oceana’s first DNA investigation
Press Release Date: December 8, 2025
Location: Brussels
Contact:
Irene Campmany | email: icampmany@oceana.org | tel.: +34 682 622 245
The organisation’s newly released DNA study reveals a 77% fish mislabelling rate in Brussels restaurants, including EU institutions canteens
A decade after Oceana first exposed widespread seafood mislabelling in Brussels restaurants, a new investigation shows that the problem persists. Using DNA testing, Oceana sampled 30 fish dishes from restaurants across the city, including in the canteens of the European Parliament and European Commission, and found that 77% of the fish served was mislabelled.
Tuna remains highly misrepresented, with 88% of dishes incorrectly labelled on menus or misdescribed by staff. Bluefin tuna, an iconic and highly prized species, continues to be substituted with cheaper alternatives such as yellowfin and bigeye tuna, and even other species like Atlantic salmon and swordfish. Prices reflect this deception: dishes advertised as bluefin tuna averaged 15 euros, while genuine bluefin tuna dishes cost nearly double.
“Ten years after our first investigation, consumers in Brussels are still in the dark about some of the fish they eat in restaurants. Currently, under EU legislation, restaurants, hotels and mass caterers are not required to provide basic seafood information, such as species, origin or catch method. We demand the EU to strengthen the current legislation to ensure that all seafood, including the one served in restaurants, has basic information available. This lack of transparency undermines consumer choice and can possibly enable some products associated with illegal fishing or human rights abuse to enter the EU market”, says Marine Cusa, Policy Advisor at Oceana in Europe.
The focus of this study was largely on tuna, but a few other species were also sampled in the canteens of the European Parliament and European Commission. Although these venues voluntarily displayed precise labels with the common and/or scientific names of the fish species, two out of six samples were mislabelled.
In addition, Oceana tested 34 squid dishes sold in restaurants in Brussels, including the canteens of EU institutions, revealing that squid labelling is equally opaque. Despite being a diverse group of over 300 species, squid dishes in Brussels are almost universally sold under generic names like “squid” or “calamar”. DNA tests revealed that 55% of squid samples in Belgium were jumbo flying squid, a species that has been linked to illegal fishing and human rights abuses depending on the nationality of the fleet that targets it, yet no restaurant could identify the species served.
Currently, EU requirements on seafood consumer information, included in the regulation on the Common Market Organisation for fisheries and aquaculture, are only mandatory for fresh and frozen products sold by retailers, fishmongers, and market stalls. Therefore, Oceana calls on the European Union to strengthen seafood consumer information requirements to all seafood products, including those sold in restaurants, cafeterias, and hotels, closing major loopholes that enable mislabelling and illegal fishing.
Restaurants, cafeterias, and hotels account for roughly 30% of seafood consumed in the EU, yet transparency measures on the products sold in these establishments are non-existent, leading to absent, incorrect, or misleading seafood labels. Without information on species and their origins, consumers cannot make informed choices and are at risk of buying a product they might otherwise reject.
Notes to editors:
- In 2015, Oceana’s first Brussels study revealed a 30% mislabelling rate across 280 seafood samples purchased in restaurants and EU institutions canteens, and a 95% mislabelling rate of bluefin tuna. Today’s findings show that despite EU efforts to improve seafood information and transparency, restaurants remain a blind spot in consumer protection.
- Two weeks ago, Oceana released a related wider study which revealed that half of squid products analysed in Brussels and Milan lack basic consumer information. The analysis also concluded that 90% of unlabelled squid products were imported from the distant waters of the Indian, Pacific or Southwest Atlantic oceans. Read the press release here and the full report here.
