'Chance to shine' for Australian seafood under new labelling laws

New seafood country-of-origin labelling in Australian hospitality venues Wed 1 Jul 2026 at 12:16pm In short: From today, hospitality venues are required to label where their seafood is from. Industry groups say it will stop venues substituting imported fish or entirely different species for Australian product. What's next? The hospitality sector says implementing the laws may be difficult, while environment groups want even more information on labels. Diners biting into their battered fish and chips at a pub or an expensive fish fillet at a restaurant will now know exactly where their meal is coming from. New country-of-origin labelling laws for seafood come into effect today for all venues and outlets that sell ready-to-eat seafood. Menus and boards at food outlets will need to include a letter next to each seafood item indicating whether it is from Australia (A), imported (I) or mixed (M). That includes hotels and motels serving food (including room service), casinos, amusement parks and the humble fish-and-chip shop. Dine-in meals, takeaway and home delivery are also subject to the new rules. Phil and Penny Dean run Sea Salt Fish and Chips at Coffs Harbour on the New South Wales north coast. They sell locally caught fish and have been promoting the origin of their seafood for years. "We have a major resource on our doorstep, the Coffs Marina, and we wanted to exploit that," Mr Dean said. "I think it's Australian seafood's chance to shine now. "Right now we can introduce kingfish, black snapper, teraglin, and what people are finding is, if we give them a sample, they love it." Getting what you order Victorian fisherman and executive officer of the SE Trawl Industry Fishing Association Simon Boag said customers were often not getting what they ordered. "When you go to a pub or a club or a sushi restaurant …who knows what you're getting?" he said. "I've been around seafood for 35 years, and when I order a piece of snapper, and I take the first bite … I realise it's a piece of farmed basa from Vietnam," he said. Popular species a big problem Joe De Belen is a former restaurant owner in Alice Springs and now a seafood exporter based in Sydney. He said that up until now, if you ordered barramundi, you would generally be served something from overseas. "I reckon 85 to 90 per cent is imported," he said. Mr De Belen said Australian barramundi were bigger, and the fillets were fatter, but customers were getting imported fish and having a poor experience. "When people come to my house and have barramundi, they go, 'I've never had a piece like it,' and I say, 'Yeah, that's because you've never had a piece of Australian barramundi,'" he said. Australian Marine Conservation Alliance campaign communications specialist Peta Morton said about two-thirds of seafood consumed in Australia came from overseas, and a third of that might not be sustainably harvested. She said the new rules were important, but with more than 2,400 species of fish consumed around the world, just knowing the country of origin was not enough for consumers to make good choices. "It would be great to see states, if it's from Australia, … and a standard name so everyone knows what fish is what," Ms Morton said. "Also, it would be great to know how it's caught or farmed." Labelling challenges John Hart, chair of Restaurant & Catering Australia, said there would be challenges in implementing the new labelling because there were gaps in the supply chain. "It's not a matter of misleading [consumers], it's not a matter of lack of preparedness, it's just the nature of the product," he said. "A number of products are coming in without appropriate declarations of where they're from." Fishmonger Joshua Cook said the industry was already seeing a surge in interest in Australian seafood and food businesses were changing their labels. "I suppose [businesses] don't want to get caught out having to say 'imported,'" he said. "[I'm] not saying that imported is a bad thing, but it's just about transparency." Businesses must keep records of all seafood bought for three months, and suppliers face stiff penalties if they fail to provide correct information to food service providers. In NSW, Fair Trading can impose penalties of $2.5 million for individuals, and businesses can be fined $50 million or 30 per cent of the annual turnover from the previous year. But Mr Hart said it would be hard to enforce the regulations. "But this is about good information for consumers and promoting good quality Australian products, and let's hope that that's what happens on the menus in our various businesses," he said. Supermarkets have been displaying similar information for fresh seafood since the introduction of the Country-of-Origin Food Labelling Information Standard in 2016.