Consumer Concerns over Fish Fraud
Grocery stores, restaurants, and companies selling seafood to the public have the most to lose from being caught with mislabeled product and usually have the least to gain. Retailers risk years of bad publicity reoccurring in the media, even if generated from a single event, and the retailer may not have known the mislabeling occurred. In fact, the retailer may have paid their supplier full price for product that the retailer believed to be correctly labeled, but ended up being dragged through the media for mislabeling. Unfortunately for retailers, news of a retailer selling mislabeled product remains in the consumer's mind for years after the reported event occurred. Consumers carry with them the belief of lowered expectations of quality and reliability from a particular retailer for all products the retailer offers, not just the product in question and not just at that location. Thus, retailers should test before an incident occurs. The cost of getting former customers to return is far greater than keeping current customers happy by testing with AFT.
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