Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas (CSIC), Vigo, Spain.
Max Rubner-Institut (MRI), Department of Safety and Quality of Milk and Fish Products, Hamburg, Germany.
PLoS One. 2018 May 16;13(5):e0196641. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196641. eCollection 2018.
Tuna fisheries and processing represent economic activities of paramount importance around the world. Most of these products are traded for human consumption and in general are highly demanded commodities. However, not all tuna products achieve the same market price, some consumers are willing to pay a huge amount of money for certain species (i.e. Japanese market for Bluefin tuna) while other species are rather affordable (i.e. Skipjack tuna), therefore mislabelling has been observed frequently. We collected and analysed 545 tuna samples in six European countries, including fresh, frozen and canned products, and we have investigated whether or not these products were correctly labelled under European and national legislations. We found an overall mislabelling rate of 6.79%; in particular, 6.70% of the fresh and frozen tuna products and 7.84% of canned tuna were mislabelled, and only in the case of fresh and frozen tuna samples significant differences among countries were found. Mislabelling rates for Atlantic Bluefin tuna labelled products were very high, ranging from 50 up to 100%. In general, mislabelling was higher when specific names were included in the labels. The "tuna" umbrella term is a very popular one with consumers, but also one that remains vulnerable to ambiguity, hampering efforts towards market transparency and with potential negative consequences to the adequate management of tuna species stocks.
金枪鱼渔业和加工业在全球范围内具有至关重要的经济活动。这些产品中的大多数都用于人类消费，通常是需求量很大的商品。然而，并非所有金枪鱼产品都能达到相同的市场价格，一些消费者愿意为某些物种（如日本市场的蓝鳍金枪鱼）支付巨额资金，而其他物种则相对实惠（如鲣鱼），因此经常出现标签错误的情况。我们在六个欧洲国家收集和分析了 545 个金枪鱼样本，包括新鲜、冷冻和罐装产品，并调查了这些产品是否符合欧洲和国家法规的正确标签。我们发现总体标签错误率为 6.79%；特别是，新鲜和冷冻金枪鱼产品的标签错误率为 6.70%，罐装金枪鱼的标签错误率为 7.84%，只有在新鲜和冷冻金枪鱼样本中，各国之间才存在显著差异。标记为大西洋蓝鳍金枪鱼的产品的标签错误率非常高，从 50%到 100%不等。一般来说，标签中包含特定名称时，标签错误率更高。“金枪鱼”这个总称在消费者中很受欢迎，但也容易产生歧义，这阻碍了市场透明度的努力，并可能对金枪鱼物种资源的适当管理产生负面影响。
