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Atlantic seabass. (Photo: Roberto Pillon/CC BY 3.0)
Seafood businessman sentenced to prison for seabass fraud
(UNITED KINGDOM, 2/3/2015)
A businessman from Cumbria was sentenced to six months in prison and a fine of more than USD 75,000 for his involvement in a scandal originated in a seabass sale fraud.
Michael Redhead, a former Royal Navy chef and current managing director of Michael Redhead Associates Ltd, was found guilty for deceiving the public with seafood incorrectly identified and selling hundreds of thousands of packs of fish wrongly labelled through a supermarket chain.
In 2011, the former chef reached an agreement with Kirwin Brothers Ltd to produce seabass for Iceland Foods Ltd, so that it would market the product at Iceland food stores under its own brand name.
As Atlantic seabass price rose, Redhead searched for a cheaper alternative and found that Japanese seabass, a form of perch, could be a substitute.
He contacted the principal trading standards officer of Cumbria County Council for clarification in that regard and was told that he could neither use Chinese nor Japanese seabass instead.
Nevertheless, the executive sent a false email to Kirwin Brothers saying there was no problem in using the other species, the Hull Daily Mail informed.
The fraud was discovered when trading standards officers from Hull City Council visited an Iceland Foods store in Holderness Road, in the east of the city.
The judge in charge of the case said, "Both Iceland and Kirwin Brothers are to be criticised for not checking the relevant regulations and permitting the mislabelling of the food product for sale to the public."
"Public confidence has been and will be seriously undermined by your fraudulent conduct," especially at times “when there is considerable public concern about the origin and correct identification of food products,” the judge added.
The manoeuvre that took place between 2012 and last year, entailed 400,000 packs of the wrongly labelled fish worth more than GBP 1.1 million (USD 1.65 million), which were sold at 600 Iceland outlets across the country.
Redhead and his company admitted fraud.
Iceland and Kirwin Brothers declined to comment on the issue.
editorial@seafood.media
www.seafood.media
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