It’s apparently a case of ‘you get what you pay for’ when purchasing ‘cheap’ fish at some NZ fish & chip shops.Vietnamese catfish or ‘basa’ is an ultra-cheap species of fish farmed in the highly polluted Mekong Delta. Since March 20, MAF Biosecurity has approved imports of the cheap fish.

In June 2009, 15,000kg was imported by Shore Mariner, one of New Zealand’s largest seafood suppliers, and has been largely bought by fish & chip shops and producers of ready-made meals and crumbed fish.

Director of “Talley’s” Andrew Talley, campaigned against the imports, saying basa is farmed in the “most putrid and polluted waters anywhere in the world”.

“It’s harvested with slave labour, with no environmental regulations and no health and safety regulations, which enables them to produce a product at about a third of the cost of New Zealand product.”

He said Vietnamese catfish was sold as orange roughy, sole, tarakihi and also ling in various countries, which meant that people could be eating basa without knowing it.

NZ Herald reports that none of the fish and chip shop owners in Auckland they spoke to said they sold basa.

Basa-free zones includes John Dory’s in Herne Bay, who only use fresh john dory, tarakihi or snapper. Also Happy Takeaways in Westmere offer frozen hoki and higher priced snapper & tarakihi.

Source: NZ Herald.co.nz 5 July 09