Seafood labels play an increasingly key role in assisting consumers in purchasing processed and featureless fish products, and in encouraging sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices. While informed purchasing choices are typically influenced by traceability and labelling awareness, they also depend on the consumers’ ability to identify and discriminate the fish species available on the market, which to date remains notably unexplored. We asked 720 people across six European countries to identify pictures of six fish species commonly sold in Europe. We reveal that European consumers have a poor understanding of the appearance of the fish they consume (overall ∼ 30% correct identification), with British consumers performing the poorest and Spanish ones doing best. We noted cultural association with some species, whereby the most regionally consumed fish are more easily recognized. We argue that despite recent improvements in technological solutions, stakeholder dialogue, and policy implementation, seafood market transparency will remain open to malpractice until consumers restore connection with their food.

海鲜标签在协助消费者购买加工和无特色的鱼类产品以及鼓励可持续的渔业和水产养殖方法方面发挥着越来越重要的作用。尽管知情的购买选择通常受可追溯性和标签意识的影响，但它们还取决于消费者识别和区分市场上可用鱼类的能力，迄今为止，这种鱼类仍未得到充分开发。我们要求六个欧洲国家的720个人识别欧洲常见的六种鱼类的照片。我们发现，欧洲消费者对所食用鱼类的外观了解甚少（总体正确识别率约为30％），其中英国消费者表现最差，西班牙消费者表现最差。我们注意到与某些物种的文化联系，从而最容易识别区域消费最多的鱼。我们认为，尽管最近在技术解决方案，利益相关者对话和政策实施方面有了改进，但海鲜市场的透明度将一直存在弊端，直到消费者恢复与食品的联系。