KANSAS CITY, Mo. - City health officials have confirmed multiple cases of fish substitution first uncovered by an
NBC Action News Investigation and identified additional fake seafood products served at one Kansas City restaurant.
Meantime, our investigation has uncovered a metro seafood wholesaler misrepresenting a cheaper fish as authentic red snapper to a restaurant identified during our investigation as one making fish substitutions.
The red snapper at Couzin's Catfish was one of many impostors we were served according to the DNA tests conducted for NBC Action News by the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University.
Our
test results indicated 17 out of 20 Kansas City restaurants included in our investigation substituted. That's 85 percent.
See Map of All Restaurants Here.
Owner 'Devastated'
“I was devastated, I mean totally devastated,” says Couzin’s Catfish owner Lisa Acklin.
Acklin says, even after our report aired, her supplier continued to tell her she was getting real red snapper.
Although she said she was verbally assured it was authentic red snapper, her invoices only documented generic snapper deliveries.
So, we waited for the seafood delivery truck.
“That's red snapper as far as I know,” said a delivery man for Kansas City, Kan.-based South Atlantic Marketing when we confronted him during the delivery.
The box was labeled Scarlet Snapper, a substitute snapper which wholesales for several dollars a pound less than real red snapper, according to the vendor.
While our cameras rolled, Acklin called the supplier's president.
“What did I order yesterday?” Acklin asked.
“Red snapper,” the supplier could be heard responding over the phone.
When she handed the phone to a reporter, the supplier again confirmed Couzin’s Catfish ordered authentic red snapper,
But when we went to South Atlantic Marketing to talk to owner Bernie Madel in person, he declined an interview and said he was no longer sure what she'd ordered.
A 49-page US General Accounting Office report faults the Food and Drug administration for mismanagement and not policing vendors.
“You may be paying for something you're not getting,” says the GAO’s Lisa Shames.
The GAO report says "FDA inspectors spend very little time looking for seafood fraud," and warns of "public health consequences."
“The fish is coming through is perhaps something different and you may be allergic to it or there may be certain toxic elements to it,” Shames says.
The day after our investigation identified the 17 restaurants that failed our DNA test, the city health department sent out inspectors.
“For there to be this many that are doing this, out of what's been checked, that is a concern,” said Jeff Hershberger, a spokesman for the Kansas City Health Department.
Keep Reading to Learn What City Inspectors Found When They Took a Look at the Restaurants We Investigated that Fall Within City Limits
