Big change coming to seafood on Australian menus - Produce Awards

Jul 28, 2026

Country of Origin Labelling is now mandatory for seafood served in hospitality venues. The aim is to empower consumers and support local fishers, but not all experts are convinced it’s the solution the industry needs.

If you’ve eaten out at a seafood restaurant recently, or even if you’ve headed down to the corner shop to grab some fish and chips, you might have noticed something different about the menu. That’s because, as of July 1, Country of Origin Labelling laws for seafood in hospitality venues officially kicked in.

So what exactly are these new rules, and why were they introduced?

What are the new Country of Origin seafood laws?

The legislation requires all hospitality businesses – including restaurants, cafes, pubs, clubs, food trucks and even online delivery apps – to clearly state the origin of the seafood they’re serving, whether that’s for dine-in or takeaway.

To keep things streamlined for both those dishing up the day’s catch and for the general public, the law uses a straightforward system of letters – AIM. These stand for:

A – Australian: The seafood is from Australia or its territorial waters.
I – Imported: The seafood is from overseas.
M – Mixed: The dish contains a combination of both Australian and imported seafood.

It has already been mandatory for seafood sold at Australian retail outlets to display country of origin labelling since July 2018. This new legislation simply brings foodservice and hospitality venues into line with supermarket standards.

Two Gulfs Crab produces 100% South Australian crab meat.

Where does my seafood come from?

Incredibly, despite the fact that we have some of the most amazing seafood in the world, Australia imports around 60-70 percent of its seafood. Why? Much of our premium seafood gets exported overseas, while we import cheaper products for local, everyday consumption.

A large proportion of the fish sold in hospitality venues is imported – fillets used for fish and chips at shops, pubs and clubs, for instance. And according to the ABC, around 60 percent of barramundi sold in Australian hospitality venues is actually imported from Southeast Asia, which also has barramundi (also known as Asian sea bass).

Reef fisher Chris Bolton produces line-caught wild barramundi in Queensland.

Will Country of Origin seafood laws create more demand for Australian seafood?

delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Award-winner Serena Zipf of Rocky Point Aquaculture has been lobbying for country of origin labelling on seafood for decades, and believes the new laws will help guide consumers

“Consumers should be able to make a genuine and informed choice,” she says. “For those who have the ability and desire to support local produce, and pay more as a result, there is confidence and trust that they are getting what they pay for.

“Potentially, it may start some consumers on that thought journey, and cause them to explore why origin may matter to them – and what, if anything, they are prepared to change in their spending in retail and in dining out.”

But while transparency is always a good thing when it comes to food, some experts believe that such a simple system will not drive genuine demand for local seafood. A single letter tells you nothing of the real story behind the seafood – where it was caught, who it was caught by and what method of catch they used. It’s this story – what Produce Awards National Judge Matt Moran calls the “romance” behind the food – that piques curiosity and creates an appetite.

Seafood specialist John Susman, who has spent more than 40 years working in the seafood industry, says that “a letter is information, not inspiration”, and that a law cannot manufacture a craving.

“I support truth and transparency at the table,” he says. “But AIM is a very blunt instrument. A single letter tells you where seafood was harvested; it tells you nothing about the species, fishery, season, method of capture, environmental credentials, quality or the people behind it.

“The ‘M’ category is especially unhelpful: a dish containing 90 percent Australian seafood and one containing 10 percent Australian seafood receive exactly the same designation.”

Soueast Seafoods line-caught mackerel, from NSW.

Will Country of Origin seafood laws benefit the Australian seafood industry?

For Zipf, she believes that these new laws will be a success if they are effectively enforced – only then will consumers see the AIM system as one they can trust. But “you would like to think that non-corporatised farms/fishers may have a better chance of being able to stay and compete if consumers think that it is desirable to support food produced from local, smaller enterprises through their conscious purchasing decisions,” she says.

Susman also believes that these new laws may have the potential to benefit the local industry – if they’re enforced – but says that relying on letters alone is not the most effective way to fight food fraud.

“Fraud is fraud and should be prosecuted vigorously – but a letter on a menu is not, by itself, a properly funded anti-fraud system,” he says.

Susman also points out that a simple letter is not enough to really show Aussie consumers how truly special our seafood is.

“AIM may give Australian seafood greater visibility and provide good operators with an opening to tell a richer provenance story,” he says. “It may also make diners pause before assuming that every barramundi, prawn or calamari served in Australia was caught here.

“However, the letter ‘A’ alone does not create value. The AIM label may prompt curiosity, but the industry still has to convert that curiosity into desire. Tell diners that a prawn came from Australia and they are informed. Tell them it was caught in deep water off the NSW South Coast, frozen aboard the boat and landed by a family that has worked those waters for generations – and that it has a deep rich flavour and creamy texture – and they may actually want to order it.”

King prawns with yuzu aioli — The more info you have about where your seafood came from, the better.

Do Australians care where their seafood comes from?

Most Australians do really care where their seafood comes from, but as Susman points out, “origin rarely operates in isolation”.

“They also care about price, taste, freshness, sustainability, trust and the recommendation of the chef or fishmonger,” he says. He also points out that imported seafood is not necessarily the enemy.

“It provides an affordable and important entry point for many Australian consumers,” he says. “If a family cannot afford to feed the kids Australian seafood, imported fish may be what keeps seafood in their diet. We should be very careful not to close that pathway through an overly simplistic suggestion that ‘Australian’ automatically means good and ‘imported’ means inferior.”

A single letter on a menu might be the law, but it’s only the beginning of the story. If you truly care about what’s on your plate, the best thing you can do is ask. If the venue can proudly tell you exactly where, how and by whom your seafood was caught, that’s always a good sign, and will be a much more reliable indicator of both provenance and quality.