Imported ‘garfish’ duping consumers and hurting fishers

That fish and chips you had for dinner last night might not be what you thought it was.

Cheap Chinese “garfish” is flooding local markets, undermining the livelihood of local fishers and damaging the brand value of the iconic South Australian species.

That’s the opinion of Port Wakefield commercial fisher Bart Butson and others for whom the garfish makes up a significant portion of their annual income.

Fresh fish sellers are required by law to list a product’s country of origin but restaurants, pubs and fish and chip shops are not covered by the legislation.

Mr Butson said some steps had been made towards introducing similar laws for retailers of cooked fish but it was a frustratingly slow process. In the meantime, he said, consumers needed to be aware of the overseas imports and make an informed choice.

Port Wakefield fisherman Bart Butson says overseas seafood imports are making things increasingly difficult for the local industry. Picture: Brad Fleet

Some of Bart Butson’s garfish caught off Port Wakefield. Picture: Dylan Coker

“The good outlets all use our product,” Mr Butson said.

“The outlets that are money-oriented and want to deceive the public will use the imported stuff.

“In my opinion it is deliberate deception. They sell this as garfish and they’re allowed to do this.

“I have no problem with people choosing something of a more modest value, we’re all feeling the pinch.

“All I would ask is that it’s labelled and that people are conscious of that choice.”

The imported product is not the same species as the South Australian garfish (Hyporhamphus melanochir), which along with King George whiting and snapper is one of the most popular table species in the state.

“This stuff tastes bad, and I fear that it could put people off buying our fish,” Mr Butson said of the imported product, which retails for as little as a third of the price of local garfish.

“We’re there for the public. We’re agents, regulated by the government, whose job is to provide the best seafood in the world. We feel terrible that consumers are being duped.

“We don’t know where this fish is coming from, how it was caught and the conditions it was caught under.”

Side-by-side comparison of South Australian garfish and its overseas counterpart. The SA garfish is on top, the imported on the bottom. Picture: Supplied

Mr Butson said the flooding of the market with imported garfish and other seafood products made making a living increasingly difficult for SA’s small-scale commercial fishers.

“A few years ago the price, even at the low point, still made it feasible to go fishing,” he said.

“Now the bottom can drop out so severely that it makes it unviable to go fishing, and you don’t know that until you’ve been.”

Emily Harrison is a senior advisor at Minderoo, the philanthropic foundation founded by Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, and has been working closely with the foundation’s Fair Catch Alliance initiative which aims to increase transparency around seafood imports.

“There’s a huge conversation that needs to start around the issue of seafood imports coming into Australia,” Ms Harrison said.

“Less than 20 per cent of Australians are aware that 65 per cent of our seafood is imported. Minderoo did a report in 2021 which found that the only consistent information we’re capturing at the border is product type – which is not species – and the weight of that product.

“So we can’t even trace the origins of these products because we don’t have that information when it comes over the border.”

Ms Harrison said this meant everything from the product’s freshness to the methods with which it was caught and the conditions those catching it were working under remained a mystery.”

Ms Harrison said consumers should feel comfortable asking retailers where their fish came from.

“You still see things on menus like ‘fish of the day’ or ‘market fish’,” she said.

“It’s hard to imagine consumers being comfortable with a product labelled ‘land animal of the day’.

“There shouldn’t be any shame around asking what the fish is, where it comes from and even how it was caught.”