Food fraud is under the spotlight again as the FSA prepares to name and shame retailers that sell farmed fish as wild.

In a report due in the next ten days, the FSA will identify sea bass, sea bream and salmon as having been mislabelled. The report author stops short of describing it as fraud, arguing that no prosecutions have yet been made.

An FSA spokesman said: "There is no evidence in the survey to state that British retailers are colluding in food fraud. It indicates some foods are being mis-described in retail outlets."

Those included multiple retailers, fishmongers and fish wholesalers, the FSA added. As news of the report broke, multiple retailers scrambled to check they weren't at fault. Asda's brand director Andy Adcock ordered a check by fish buyers for the integrity of its fish labelling.

An Asda spokeswoman said the retailer was certain its sea bass and sea bream were correctly labelled, because the packaging acknowledged the product was farmed. "Wild salmon is a different colour and has a different muscle structure, so it's impossible to pass off farmed fish as wild," she added.

Sainsbury's said its wild fish was covered by assurance schemes that guaranteed the chain of custody. "Without specific details of stores and fish lines, we can't delve down and see everything's correctly labelled," said a spokeswoman.

Waitrose made a similar claim about the strength of its traceability systems.

The FSA is developing tests that can identify fish and meat from different parts of the world and farming systems. In time, it expects to be able to launch an organic test.

Trading Standards officers in Northumberland are inspecting 2,000 food businesses in the county to clamp down on fraudulent meat labelling.

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