Wild · Farmed · Catfish (Siluriformes) · Shellfish
How FAT Reads Seafood Labels
Farm Animal Transparency evaluates every seafood label using the same three-step analysis that drives every FAT reading — what is disclosed, how credible is the disclosure, and who stands behind the label. The result is a disclosure count: how many of the 16 transparency categories the label addresses, how credibly, and what the public record says — read against the federal baseline every product already meets. FAT rates the disclosure, never the food. The 16-category framework is identical in structure to the meat methodology, adapted to seafood evidence: vessel or fishery instead of ranch where appropriate, FDA facility registration instead of FSIS establishment number for non-catfish seafood, and chain-of-custody intermediaries (importers, brokers, cold storage, secondary processors) recorded in Category 16.
One regulatory fork sits at the center of this page: catfish and all other Siluriformes are regulated by USDA FSIS. Every other seafood product is regulated by the FDA. That split changes which inspection mark appears on the label, which establishment or registration number unlocks enforcement data, which species-naming rules apply, and which residue-testing regime tests for banned aquaculture drugs. FAT records the fork explicitly on every seafood label.
The Three Steps of a FAT Seafood Reading
Step 1 — What Is Disclosed
FAT evaluates seafood labels against the same 16-category transparency framework, adapted to seafood evidence: vessel or fishery instead of ranch where appropriate, FDA facility registration instead of FSIS establishment number for non-catfish seafood, and chain-of-custody intermediaries where the product moves through importers, brokers, cold storage, or secondary processors.
| # | Category | What Step 1 looks for on a seafood label |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Required Basics | FDA-required label basics for most seafood (statement of identity, net quantity, ingredient list, Big-9 allergen statement, Nutrition Facts, name and place of business of the manufacturer/packer/distributor); USDA/FSIS inspection legend and establishment number for Siluriformes/catfish. For loose fish sold from a service case, the AMS retail placard (country of origin + wild vs. farmed) is the required disclosure. Scored pass/fail: the required elements are present — pass — or absent or incorrect — fail. There is no partial. |
| 2 | Species | Acceptable market name, common name, and scientific-name check against the FDA Seafood List to prevent species substitution. “Catfish” is legally restricted to Ictalurus spp.; Vietnamese tra and basa cannot carry that label in the U.S. Scored pass/fail: the statement of identity (acceptable market name) is mandatory and must correctly identify the species — present = pass, wrong or absent = fail. |
| 3 | Strain / Variety / Stock | Farmed strain/variety/stock or wild stock/population where disclosed and substantiated. Functional equivalent of Breed. Scored all-or-nothing: 3 points if a specific strain or stock is disclosed, 0 if not — no partial credit. |
| 4 | Country of Origin | Country of harvest or farming, country of processing, and production method (wild or farmed) under seafood COOL (7 CFR Part 60). Scored all-or-nothing: 4 points if a specific country is disclosed, 0 if not. |
| 5 | Farm / Vessel / Fishery | Named aquaculture farm, vessel, fishery, fleet, harvest area, or grow-out location. Vessel name, registration, home port for wild-caught. Scored all-or-nothing: 5 points if a specific, named source (farm, vessel, or fishery) is disclosed, 0 if not — a bare “wild-caught” or “farm-raised” with no named source is not a source identity and earns no credit. |
| 6 | Harvest Timing / Age | Harvest date, production cycle, grow-out duration, or age/harvest timing where meaningful and disclosed. Scored all-or-nothing: 4 points if a specific harvest date or grow-out period is disclosed, 0 if not. |
| 7 | Processor | Processor identity. For FDA seafood there is no on-label establishment number, so the required label identifier is the name and place of business (manufacturer/packer/distributor); for Siluriformes/catfish it is the FSIS establishment number. The identifier is scored pass/fail (present = pass, absent = fail). Behind the scenes the FDA facility registration or FSIS establishment number determines which enforcement dataset is queried. Two further regulators apply as stacking penalties against this category’s disclosure score: EPA environmental violations −3; OSHA worker-safety citations −2 (no record = 0). |
| 8 | Who | Legal entity, parent company, beneficial ownership, foreign-control status, and sector-concentration context behind the seafood product. Scored all-or-nothing: 4 points if the legal owner and corporate parent are identified, 0 if not. |
| 9 | Brand | Consumer-facing brand and its relationship to processor, importer, distributor, and parent company. Scored all-or-nothing: 3 points if the consumer-facing brand and its ownership relationship are identified, 0 if not. |
| 10 | Feed / Production Method | Farmed seafood feed composition and feed-conversion disclosures; wild seafood gear type and harvest method as the functional equivalent of production method. Weighted 6 points; graded — a specific, documented production method or feed earns full credit, vague terms partial. |
| 11 | Animal Welfare / Handling | Farmed aquatic animal welfare or handling disclosures, slaughter/harvest handling where disclosed, and relevant third-party program coverage. Missing is the norm in seafood — scored as a disclosure gap, not a violation. Weighted 8 points — the heaviest single category; graded by specificity and credibility. |
| 12 | Medicine / Chemicals | Antibiotic policy, banned-drug residue testing, chemical treatments, contaminant testing, and residue-compliance disclosures. Banned residues (malachite green, nitrofurans, chloramphenicol) in imports. Weighted 5 points; graded. |
| 13 | Hormones / Growth Promotants | Hormone or growth-promotant disclosure only where legally and factually relevant; otherwise marked N/A rather than used as a marketing claim. |
| 14 | Quality & Palatability | Fresh/frozen/previously frozen status, glazing/additives, USDA grade (catfish), grade/quality marks, handling method, and sensory-quality disclosures. Phosphate glazing (STPP) inflates net weight and must be declared. |
| 15 | Organic / Certification Status | Organic or comparable certification status where a recognized standard applies, plus MSC, ASC, BAP, or other certification when used as a credibility signal for the relevant category. Weighted 6 points; graded. |
| 16 | Supply-Chain Intermediaries | Intermediate chain-of-custody actors between harvest/farm and final package: landing facility, auction, broker, importer of record, cold storage, secondary processor, distributor, repacker, and chain-of-custody certification where applicable. Weighted 2 points; graded. |
Disclosure status at Step 1:
- ✔ Known — clearly disclosed. Example: “Wild-caught, MSC Certified, North Pacific Alaskan Pollock, F/V Northern Glacier.”
- ◑ Partial — present but vague. Example: “Wild-caught” with no fishery, vessel, or certification named.
- ✕ Missing — not addressed. A gap, not an accusation.
Step 2 — How Credible Is the Disclosure
The four credibility tiers are the same as the meat methodology — only the named programs change.
- Third-party audited — Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for wild-caught; Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) for farmed; Global GAP for aquaculture welfare. Weight 1.0×.
- USDA-reviewed / FDA-reviewed — COOL-compliant country-of-origin under 7 CFR Part 60; USDA FSIS catfish inspection mark; FDA Seafood List–compliant species name; FDA HACCP plan on file. Weight 0.7×.
- Producer-affidavit — documented at the producer or vessel level but without independent or agency audit. Weight 0.4×.
- Unverified marketing — “sustainably sourced,” “ocean-fresh,” “responsibly farmed,” “natural” without a named standard or certifier. Weight 0.1×.
Step 3 — Who Stands Behind the Label
FAT surfaces the seafood accountability chain on every label:
- The processor — FSIS establishment number (catfish) or FDA facility registration (other seafood), and the public enforcement record attached to that processor.
- The brand owner — the legal entity that owns the brand on the package.
- Beneficial and foreign ownership — most large U.S.-distributed seafood brands are owned by foreign processors: Thai Union (Thailand), Mowi (Norway), Maruha Nichiro (Japan), Cooke (Canada), Cermaq (Japan, via Mitsubishi).
- Economic concentration — concentration in the relevant species and gear/farm system.
See the Step 3 deep dive below.
The FAT Disclosure Card
Every scan returns one card. It leads with a plain count — how many of the 16 transparency categories the label discloses — shown as a meter, not a letter grade and not a red/amber/green verdict on the food.
- The count — e.g. “9 of 16 categories disclosed.” A meter fills to the count. More disclosure means more transparency; it is not a judgment of the fish itself.
- The federal baseline — every product on a U.S. shelf already clears a floor: FDA labeling basics (statement of identity, net quantity, allergens, name and place of business), or the USDA FSIS inspection mark for catfish. Loose fish at a service case clears the AMS placard baseline (country + wild/farmed). The card states that baseline on every label, so a low count is never mistaken for an unsafe or inferior product.
- Silent on… — the card names the categories the label does not address. A gap is a gap, not an accusation.
- Verification — for each disclosure, a pill shows how well it is backed: third-party audited (MSC/ASC/BAP), USDA/FDA-reviewed, producer affidavit, or unverified marketing.
- Public record — FDA import alerts and SIMP status, FSIS enforcement for catfish, and the processor’s EPA and OSHA records surface as factual public-record lines.
A count, not a grade. FAT rates what the label discloses and how credibly it is backed — never the quality, safety, or taste of the food.
Two Worked Examples
The same 16-category reading produces very different cards depending on how much a producer chose to disclose. Both products below are legal to sell and safe to eat; what differs is transparency, not quality. (Both labels are generic illustrations, not real brands.)
Example A — a fully traceable wild salmon: 13 of 16 disclosed
- Federal baseline (always present): Required Basics ✔ (FDA labeling), Species ✔ (salmon, sockeye — matches the FDA Seafood List), Processor ID ✔ (name and place of business printed).
- Also disclosed: Strain / Stock ✔ (sockeye, Oncorhynchus nerka) · Country of Origin ✔ (wild-caught, Product of USA / Alaska — USDA/FDA-reviewed COOL) · Farm / Vessel / Fishery ✔ (named Bristol Bay fishery and F/V — producer affidavit) · Harvest Timing ✔ (summer run stated) · Feed / Production Method ✔ (wild, gillnet-caught — producer affidavit) · Medicine / Chemicals ✔ (wild; no aquaculture drugs) · Quality ✔ (fresh, never frozen) · Organic / Certification ✔ (third-party audited — MSC) · Who / Brand ✔ (independent operator, owner identified).
- Silent on: Animal Welfare / Handling and Supply-Chain Intermediaries — 2 categories. Hormones are marked N/A (not applicable to wild fish).
- Card headline: “13 of 16 categories disclosed,” meter near full, an MSC third-party audited pill, clean processor public record.
Example B — a commodity frozen tilapia fillet: 4 of 16 disclosed
- Disclosed: Required Basics ✔ (FDA labeling), Species ✔ (tilapia), Country of Origin ✔ (Farm-raised, Product of China — COOL), Processor ID ✔ (name and place of business of the distributor).
- Silent on: Strain / Stock, Farm / Vessel / Fishery, Harvest Timing, Who, Brand relationship, Feed / production system, Animal Welfare, Medicine / banned-residue testing, Quality specifics, Organic, and Supply-Chain Intermediaries — 11 categories. Hormones N/A.
- Card headline: “4 of 16 categories disclosed,” meter near empty. A low count, not a failing grade: the product met FDA labeling and COOL; its distributor simply disclosed little beyond the legal minimum. Because it is an imported farmed species, the card also runs the FDA import-alert and SIMP public-record checks on the processor.
Neither card judges the fish itself. Example A’s producer disclosed more and had its sustainability claim independently audited; Example B’s disclosed only the federal minimum. FAT reports that difference so a shopper can see it at a glance — and decide for themselves.
How the Disclosure Count Is Weighted
Behind the card’s plain count, not every category carries the same transparency value. FAT weights the 16 into a 0–100 disclosure index — Disclosure worth up to 70 points, Credibility up to 30 — using the same machinery as the meat methodology, so that disclosing a high-value category reads as more transparency than disclosing a routine one. The weighting drives the meter’s emphasis and is documented here for transparency; the card itself leads with the plain count, not a letter grade.
Pillar 1 — Disclosure (0–70 points)
FAT evaluates all 16 seafood transparency categories. Each category contributes based on disclosure status:
- Known — full credit (1.0×)
- Partial — partial credit (0.4×)
- Missing — no credit (0×)
- N/A — not applicable to the product type; not used as a marketing advantage.
Categories are weighted by how much transparency they add; the 16 weights sum to 70 — the disclosure pillar: Animal Welfare 8; Feed / Production Method 6 and Organic 6; Farm / Vessel / Fishery 5 and Medicine 5; Strain / Variety 3 and Brand 3; Supply-Chain Intermediaries 2; the other eight categories 4 each. Credibility is the remaining 30 points.
Nine categories are all-or-nothing — full credit if disclosed, 0 if not, with no partial credit. Three are legally mandatory (pass/fail): Category 1 (Required Basics), Category 2 (Species — the mandatory statement of identity from the FDA Seafood List), and the Category 7 processor identifier (for FDA seafood the name and place of business, for catfish the FSIS establishment number). Six more are inherently binary: Strain / Variety / Stock (3 points), Country of Origin (4 points), Farm / Vessel / Fishery (5 points), Harvest Timing / Age (4 points), Who (4 points — the legal owner and corporate parent are identified, or not), and Brand (3 points — the consumer-facing brand and its ownership relationship are identified, or not) — a specific disclosure earns full credit, while a vague claim (a bare “wild-caught” with no vessel or fishery named) earns 0.
Pillar 2 — Credibility (0–30 points)
- Third-party audited — full weight (1.0×)
- USDA-reviewed / FDA-reviewed — strong weight (0.7×)
- Producer-affidavit — moderate weight (0.4×)
- Unverified marketing — low weight (0.1×)
This weighted 0–100 index orders and emphasizes disclosures behind the scenes. It is not shown to the shopper as a letter grade — the card leads with the plain count of categories disclosed and the verification behind each.
Reading Each Category
Every one of the 16 categories carries a disclosure state. These describe the label — not a verdict on the food:
- Known — the label clearly discloses the category; the verification tier records how well it is backed, with third-party audited (MSC/ASC/BAP) the strongest and unverified marketing the weakest.
- Partial — some information is present but vague or non-specific.
- Missing — the label does not address the category. A gap, not an accusation — and never a mark against the fish itself.
- N/A — not applicable to this product type (for example, hormones); never used as a marketing advantage.
Step 3 Deep Dive — Who Stands Behind a Seafood Label
The Siluriformes Exception
Catfish and all other Siluriformes (Vietnamese tra, basa, swai, the entire Pangasiidae family) are regulated by USDA FSIS — not FDA. Congress moved Siluriformes from FDA to FSIS in the 2008 Farm Bill, fully implemented in 2017. That makes catfish the only seafood product that carries a USDA FSIS inspection legend and a USDA establishment number, and the only seafood product whose enforcement data sits in the same FSIS datasets as beef, pork, and poultry.
This matters at four points on a label:
- Category 1 — catfish must carry an FSIS mark; all other seafood must carry an FDA facility registration.
- Category 2 — “catfish” as a marketing name is restricted under FDA Seafood List rules to Ictalurus species. Tra, basa, and swai cannot legally be labeled “catfish” in the U.S., though enforcement is uneven.
- Category 6 — the establishment number unlocks FSIS enforcement records for catfish; FDA registrations unlock FDA import alerts and SIMP records for everything else.
- Category 11 — FSIS tests catfish for banned aquaculture drugs (malachite green, nitrofurans) under the National Residue Program; FDA tests imports through OASIS sampling.
Wild-Caught vs. Farm-Raised
U.S. seafood COOL requires producers to disclose method of production (wild or farmed) alongside country of origin. The split changes every downstream category:
| Category | Wild-caught | Farm-raised |
|---|---|---|
| 5 — Source identity | Vessel name, registration, home port, fishery | Farm name, country, growout location |
| 7 — Method | Gear type (longline, trawl, gillnet, pot, hook-and-line); bycatch profile | System (pond, raceway, net-pen, RAS); feed composition |
| 11 — Chemicals | Mercury and contaminant load relevant to the fishery | Antibiotic use; banned aquaculture drug residue testing |
| 14 — Environmental | Bycatch rate, gear impact on seafloor habitat, fishery management status | Effluent discharge (NPDES), feed sustainability, escape and disease impact on wild populations |
FAT does not treat wild as inherently better than farmed or vice versa. The two systems have different risk profiles and different verification regimes; FAT rewards disclosure and verification within each system on the same scale.
Loose Seafood at the Service Case
Loose fish sold from a full-service case has no package to scan. The required disclosure is the AMS retail placard — country of origin plus wild vs. farmed (Category 4) — and the displayed market name is the Category 2 statement of identity. Because a photo can read the sign but never confirm the animal, the FAT App applies a service-case confidence vocabulary that extends the standard Known / Partial / Missing statuses with two states unique to the counter:
- Unverified — a claim a photo categorically cannot confirm. Species identity is always unverified at the counter: the displayed name is reported as displayed, never asserted as the actual species, and it is never upgraded without a lab or DNA result.
- Not applicable — the venue is exempt from COOL (a fish market, butcher shop, or food-service counter) or the item is processed/value-added, so a missing origin placard is not a compliance finding.
Whole-fish visual cross-check (v1.1). When the whole animal is in frame, the App runs an on-device visual pass (Apple Vision on iPhone, Google ML Kit on Android) that corroborates or flags a broad-type mismatch against the sign — a “crab” placard over a finfish, for example. It is a fraud tripwire, not a species ID and not DNA: it can raise the substitution-risk band, never confirm a species.
Worked example — “Red Snapper” fillet at a covered supermarket counter. The two posted facts (Product of USA; wild-caught) capture as Known; the market name resolves on the FDA Seafood List to Lutjanus campechanus as a Partial name match; species identity stays Unverified with a high substitution-risk note — of 120 nationwide “red snapper” samples DNA-tested by Oceana, only 7 actually were. Because the product is a fillet, the whole-fish cross-check returns “not whole” and does not apply. The full field schema, confidence semantics, and resolution logic are documented in the Service-Case Seafood Capture Schema (Seafood Engineering Note, companion to Paper No. 5).
Seafood Brand Lookup — Who Actually Owns Your Seafood
U.S. seafood brands are dominated by foreign-owned processors. A small number of corporations sit behind a long list of consumer brands.
- Thai Union (Thailand) — Chicken of the Sea (US), King Oscar, John West (UK), Petit Navire (France). World’s largest tuna processor.
- Mowi (Norway) — formerly Marine Harvest. World’s largest Atlantic salmon producer; owns Mowi and Ducktrap River brands in the U.S.
- Maruha Nichiro (Japan) — owns Alyeska Seafoods, Westward Seafoods, Premier Pacific Seafoods in the U.S. Alaskan pollock and crab processing.
- Cooke Inc. (Canada) — owns Wanchese Fish Company, Slade Gorton, True North Seafood, Cooke Aquaculture USA. Atlantic salmon and wild seafood.
- Cermaq (Norway, via Mitsubishi Corp., Japan) — major farmed salmon producer; supplies multiple U.S. brands.
- StarKist — owned by Dongwon Industries (South Korea).
- Bumble Bee Seafoods — owned by FCF Co. (Taiwan) since 2020.
FAT records the ultimate parent for every seafood brand on every reading. The accountability chain is recorded in Category 8 (Who), with chain-of-custody actors captured in Category 16 (Supply-Chain Intermediaries).
FDA Import Alerts and SIMP
For non-catfish seafood, FAT pulls two FDA datasets attached to the public-record fields of Category 7 (Processor):
- Import Alerts — FDA can issue Detention Without Physical Examination (DWPE) for shipments from specific processors or countries with documented residue or contamination problems. Active import alerts are public.
- Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) — covers 13 priority species (including tuna, shark, swordfish, blue crab, abalone, red snapper, grouper, sea cucumber, dolphinfish/mahi-mahi, king crab, Atlantic cod, Pacific cod, sardines). SIMP requires importers to report harvest, landing, and chain-of-custody data at entry, and to maintain records for two years.
FSIS-regulated catfish runs through the meat enforcement protocol — recalls, residue violations, humane handling, quarterly enforcement reports — exactly as described in the meat methodology.
For every seafood processor with a U.S. plant, FAT also surfaces the facility’s EPA environmental enforcement (water and air discharges under the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act) and its OSHA worker-safety record. Both apply as stacking penalties against Category 7’s disclosure score — EPA −3, OSHA −2 (no record = 0) — and appear on the card as factual public-record lines.
Seafood vs. Meat — Where the Reading Differs
| Meat category | Seafood equivalent | Key difference |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — USDA / FSIS Required Basics | FDA or FSIS Required Basics | Catfish/Siluriformes = FSIS; most other seafood = FDA. |
| 2 — Species | Species Identity | Seafood adds market-name and scientific-name verification. Like meat, scored pass/fail — the statement of identity is mandatory. |
| 3 — Breed | Strain / Variety / Stock | Farmed strain or wild stock replaces breed. All-or-nothing, 3 points. |
| 4 — Country of Origin | Country / Origin | Seafood origin includes harvest/farm country and processing country. All-or-nothing, 4 points. |
| 5 — Farm / Ranch | Farm / Vessel / Fishery | Wild-caught seafood has no farm; vessel, fleet, fishery, or harvest area is the source identity. All-or-nothing, 5 points — a bare “wild-caught” earns no credit. |
| 6 — Age at Slaughter | Harvest Timing / Age | Harvest date, grow-out duration, or production cycle replaces slaughter age where appropriate. All-or-nothing, 4 points. |
| 7 — Processor | Processor | FSIS establishment number for catfish; FDA facility registration or processor identity for other seafood. |
| 8 — Who | Who | Parent, beneficial ownership, foreign-control, and concentration context are recorded here. |
| 9 — Brand | Brand | Same consumer-facing brand analysis. |
| 10 — Feed | Feed / Production Method | Farmed = feed and grow-out system; wild = gear type and harvest method. |
| 11 — Animal Welfare | Animal Welfare / Handling | Farmed aquatic animal welfare and harvest handling where disclosed. |
| 12 — Medicine | Medicine / Chemicals | Antibiotic policy, aquaculture-drug residues, contaminants, and chemical treatments. |
| 13 — Hormones | Hormones / Growth Promotants | Marked N/A unless a legally and factually relevant disclosure exists. |
| 14 — Quality & Palatability | Quality & Palatability | Fresh/frozen/previously frozen, glazing/additives, handling, quality grade, and sensory-quality disclosures. |
| 15 — Organic | Organic / Certification Status | Organic or comparable certification status where a recognized standard applies; MSC/ASC/BAP remain credibility signals for the relevant categories. |
| 16 — Supply-Chain Intermediaries | Chain-of-Custody Intermediaries | Landing facility, auction, importer, broker, cold storage, secondary processor, distributor, repacker, and chain-of-custody certification. |
Sources & Framework References
- FDA HACCP for Fish and Fishery Products, 21 CFR Part 123
- FDA Seafood List (Acceptable Market Names)
- USDA FSIS Inspection of Fish of the Order Siluriformes (9 CFR Parts 530–561)
- NOAA Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP)
- USDA AMS Country of Origin Labeling for Fish and Shellfish (7 CFR Part 60)
- FDA Import Alerts and Detention Without Physical Examination (DWPE)
- FAT Seafood Engineering Note — Service-Case Seafood Capture Schema (companion to Paper No. 5)
🥩 How FAT Reads Meat Labels → — the same three-step framework applied to beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and lamb, with the full Step-3 deep dive on FSIS enforcement.
See FAT in Action
Download the FAT App and scan any seafood label to get the full reading — the disclosure count, category-by-category status, verification tiers, and enforcement records — all on one card. At a full-service counter, tap “Loose seafood at a counter?” on the Scan tab to capture the placard and run the service-case flow described above.
Get the FAT App · FDA Seafood Enforcement Lookup · Seafood Research Library
Last reviewed: July 2026. Reframed to the disclosure-count card model — count not letter grade, meter not traffic light, federal baseline on every card, rates the disclosure never the food. The weighted 0–100 methodology is retained behind the scenes (16-category framework; pass/fail for Required Basics, Species, and Processor; the 16 category weights sum to 70 — disclosure pillar 70 + credibility 30 = 100; all-or-nothing Strain/Variety 3, Country 4, Farm/Vessel/Fishery 5, Harvest/Age 4, Who 4, Brand 3; graded Animal Welfare 8, Feed 6, Organic 6, Medicine 5, Supply-Chain 2, others 4; EPA/OSHA penalties; service-case confidence vocabulary — unverified species / not_applicable venue — and whole-fish visual cross-check v1.1).