Fishery and aquaculture products in the EU: an analysis of consumers’ preferences, producers’ risk management and stakeholders’ labelling preferences

Aquaculture is considered the fastest-growing food production technology and has surpassed wild catch as a source of seafood. Moreover, in terms of regions, the European Union (EU) is the world's largest market in nominal terms for Fishery and Aquaculture Products (FAPs). Accordingly, this dissertation aims to: (1) analyse the main determinants that explain the frequency of consumption of FAPs by European residents, (2) measure the level of importance and satisfaction of consumers’ attitudes toward the purchase of seabream and seabass products, (3) identify the most significant risk sources and risk management strategies, and determine how managers can assess them using Simons’ levers of control framework, (4) analyse the scale related to the mandatory labelling information of FAPs, and (5) comprehend the acceptance of a hypothetical EU ecolabel that includes other information apart from environmental issues. The findings show that making the information accompanying FAPs clearer and emphasizing their healthiness, fair cost, tastiness, and digestibility can help increase their consumption at home. Meanwhile, stakeholders in Europe should look for ways to attract older customers and provide healthier recipes and dishes in order to increase FAPs consumption away from home. Furthermore, the findings show that the hygiene and safety of seabream and seabass products, as well as their health benefits, freshness, taste, and nutrients, are the most important factors in their consumption. In addition, the findings show that diseases are the most important type of risk for both full-cycle and grow-out companies when it comes to risk management in European aquaculture. Moreover, the results show that the name of the product, as well as the best before date, should be highlighted above all of the other mandatory labels for FAPs in the EU, while authorities should make more efforts to educate consumers about the importance of fishing gear, which was considered the least important item. Finally, the findings show that a union-wide EU ecolabel for FAPs should include in addition to environmental information, the following issues in order of importance: social and ethical, animal welfare, health and safety, and food quality

Analysis of the main determinants of away-from-home consumption of fishery and aquaculture products in the EU28

peer reviewedThe European Union (EU) is the largest market in nominal terms for fishery and aquaculture products (FAPs), partly due to the away-from-home consumption of these products in restaurants and food outlets. In view of this, it is necessary to identify the main determinants of the away-from-home consumption patterns in order to propose strategies that could increase the consumption of FAPs. Following this, ordered probit models were estimated alongside their marginal effects to identify the most relevant factors determining the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs in the EU28, using a representative sample of 27732 EU residents. We found that those in the highest classes of society are most likely to consume FAPs away-from-home more frequently. Also, the most important reasons for consuming FAPs away-from-home more frequently are that they are less expensive than other foods, taste good, and are healthy and easy to digest. In addition, among the different nationalities, British consumers are more likely to consume FAPs away-from-home. We also found that there is a higher frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs for consumers between the ages of 25 and 54, who do not live in rural areas, who prefer wild-caught and local and marine products, and that are very satisfied with their lives. The study contributes to the literature with the analysis of FAPs away-from-home consumption by using a large representative sample of EU28 consumers. The study is also relevant with respect to the extensive list of determinants that include factors related to the attitudes of respondents to FAPs and socio-demographic characteristics.BioMedAq

Assessing the label’s mandatory information for fishery and aquaculture products in the EU28. A consumer approach based on a consistent fuzzy preference relation with geometric Bonferroni mean

peer reviewedFishery and aquaculture products (FAPs) are a very important source of the protein intake of the European Union (EU) citizens. Despite the importance, the knowledge on labelling is still scarce. Two important issues regarding the labelling preferences of 27732 EU residents (the criteria interrelationship as well as the relationship that exists at the country level) will be assessed through a method based on a modified Consistent Fuzzy Preference Relation (CFPR) that uses the Geometric Bonferroni Mean (GBM) operator. The results show that not all the EU countries are homogeneous, so the subsidiarity principle might have been applicable. Our results also contribute to the strand of the fishery and aquaculture market. Policy implications, as well as future research studies, are discussedBioMedAq

Determinants of fishery and aquaculture products consumption at home in the EU28

peer reviewedThe European Union (EU) is the world’s largest market for fishery and aquaculture products (FAPs) in nominal terms. Given the importance of these products, EU authorities and policy-makers are continuously monitoring consumer preferences and attitudes, analysing whether or not the implementation of EU policies and regulations improves the market conditions. For example, the Eurobarometer (European Union, 2018a) surveyed 27,732 EU residents including a specific module to analyse the fishery and aquaculture EU market. In this study, the dataset is used to estimate Ordered Probit models using effects coding and their marginal effects to identify the main determinants of the frequency of FAPs at-home consumption. Results indicate that the highest probability to consume more frequently FAPs is related to considering that one of the main reasons for buying or eating fishery and aquaculture products is because they are healthy, while the highest probability to consume less frequently FAPs is related to consumers who do not understand at all the information accompanying the products. Similarly, other important reasons for consuming FAPs more frequently are their good taste and low relative price. Also, results indicate a higher frequency of consumption of FAPs for those consumers who are over 55 years of age, are wealthy, have a wild product preference, live in a household of 3 persons or more and are very satisfied with their lives. To our best knowledge, there is not a similar approach in the current literature that considers such an extensive sample which is representative of all the countries that conform the EU28. Results provide valuable information especially for producers and authorities in terms of marketing and policy analysisBioMedAq

Modelling with joint choice of ports and countries of origin and destination: application to Colombian ports

Literature has focused on studying port choice independently or as an element of a supply chain without considering the joint selection with the country of origin/destination of the imports/exports. However, the characteristics and location of a port may make it more attractive to mobilise more freight from/to some particular countries rather than others, making the port choice decision dependent on the country of origin/destination of the cargo. This article proposes advanced econometric models to evaluate simultaneously port choice and the country of origin/destination choice for Colombian imports and exports. Findings suggest that for imports and exports domestic freight rate is the most important variable for the joint choice process. Also, for exports, maritime transit time is more relevant than for imports, while for the frequency of shipping lines the opposite is true. The existence of a trade agreement and the gross domestic product per capita also have a significant influence on the election of a country for exports/imports.Programa Jóvenes Investigadores e Innovadores 201

Discrete choice experiments in the analysis of consumers’ preferences for finfish products: A systematic literature review

Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) have become an important tool for assessing the preferences of consumers for finfish seafood products. This investigation presents a systematic literature review of studies performed in the last 20 years (2000–2019) that use DCEs to analyse consumers’ preferences for finfish products, with the purpose to identify the main insights of consumer behaviour towards these products, the most used attributes for this type of experiments and to discuss and compare some willingness to pay estimations. We found that origin was the most used attribute for this kind of experiments, while other important factors were the harvest method, a specific certification label and the species or products considered. The WTP estimates evidenced that consumers are willing to pay premiums for domestic products, while similarly, wild products were preferred over farmed products. Also, there were higher WTP estimates for certified products, in which specific certification labels were better options rather than just claiming that the product was certified or not. All claims and labels related to sustainability, nutritional, health and safety information provided premiums that consumers were willing to pay, however, the importance differed depending on the type of label or claim, the country and species. Future research should consider the influence of being or not the main purchaser in the household, as it might affect the WTP values. Also, given the importance, future research extensions using DCEs are needed on the Chinese and Asian finfish marketBioMedAq

A Hybrid Fuzzy TOPSIS Method to Analyze the Coverage of a Hypothetical EU Ecolabel for Fishery and Aquaculture Products (FAPs)

This study presents a hybrid fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity of the ideal solution (TOPSIS) method (FTOPSIS) to analyze the coverage of a hypothetical EU ecolabel for fishery and aquaculture products (FAPs) by integrating a synthetic indicator to determine the level of acceptance for the inclusion of different types of information apart from environmental issues, considering different stakeholders and other segments of analysis. Data were obtained from a public consultation of the EU on “ecolabels for FAPs”. The results indicate that ecolabels should not only include environmental issues but also other types of information, with social and ethical issues being the most relevant, followed by animal welfare issues, health and safety issues and food quality issues. The findings also show that consumers, producers and stakeholders who are more interventionist and support the fact that public bodies and governments should be involved in the control of eco-labeling are more accepting of including additional information apart from environmental issues. Synthetic indicators (SIs) have also been found to be mostly inelastic, except for the owners of ecolabels on social and ethical issues. The implications of the future implementation of the EU ecolabel for FAPs are discussed based on the findings.BioMedAq

Visualization analysis of seabream and seabass aquaculture research using CiteSpace

In terms of production, seabream and seabass are the two most important species of marine Mediterranean aquaculture, which is why they have been extensively studied in the literature. This study uses visualization analysis with the CiteSpace software to determine the research status quo and the most important trends of seabream and seabass aquaculture research. The Web of Science (WoS) database was used to select the papers associated with seabream and seabass literature from the period between 1986 and 2020. The results were separated using two indices (Science Citation Index Expand and Social Science Citation Index). The visualization analysis identified the networks for (1) author, institution, country and category co-authorship, in order to find the most prolific authors, institutions, countries and categories respectively; and (2) journal, document and author co-citation, which identifies the most relevant journals, the most important studies and the most cited and influential authors. Finally, a keywords co-occurrence network was built to identify the most important topics and the research frontiers—body of knowledge—of the seabream and seabass aquaculture research—SSAR.BioMedAq

Consumption and buying behavior of FAPs in EU28

Purpose – The purpose of this investigation is to develop a hybrid fuzzy TOPSIS methodology in order to understand in a practical and integrated way, the consuming and buying behavior of EU residents towards Fishery and Aquaculture Products (FAPs), with an emphasis in the consumption and buying frequency. Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from the Special Eurobarometer Survey (European Union, 2018b), which is a survey of 27,732 EU residents with different socio-demographic characteristics that represent the 28 EU countries. A hybrid fuzzy TOPSIS methodology that synthesizes the consuming and buying behavior of the EU residents toward FAPs was developed. Findings – The results show that among the countries, Spain has the highest consumption and buying patterns of FAPs, while among the generations it corresponds to the residents born between 1928 and 1945. In addition, there are important differences that depend on the country of residence as well as the generation of the residents. The elasticity analysis evidenced that marketing strategies would have the biggest impact in the countries located in the Central-Eastern zone of the EU and on the generation formed by the people born after 1980. Originality/value – Although in the literature there are many studies that aimed to understand the behavior of consumers for FAPs, few investigations have focused on analyzing and integrating both the consumption and buying behavior, and to our best knowledge, there are no studies providing a methodology that allow making comparisons between different countries regarding the consumption and buying behavior of FAPs.BioMedAq

A Best–Worst Measure of Attitudes toward Buying Seabream and Seabass Products: An Application to the Island of Gran Canaria

Attitudes are important key drivers that affect consumers’ seafood consumption. The present investigation used a best–worst scaling approach to measure the level of importance and satisfaction of consumers’ attitudes towards the purchase of seabream and seabass in Gran Canaria (Spain). The investigation also compared the results of the best–worst scaling (BWS) approach with those of the traditional Likert-scale method and offers a different perspective of the results using an Importance–Satisfaction Analysis (ISA). The results indicate that the most important attributes concerned the hygiene and safety of the product, the health benefits, the freshness, the taste and the nutrients. At the same time, these attributes were ranked as those which satisfied consumers the most. However, some of the results obtained from the methodologies differed. The results suggest that, in the Likert-scale task, respondents might be overstating the importance and satisfaction of the attributes; while in the BWS, consumers were forced to evaluate a trade-off in the selection of the best and worst attributes in each scenario, so the task impeded, in principle, to define every attribute as very important and providing a high satisfaction. As a result, we consider that BWS offers more reliable and clearer results than traditional Likert-scale experiments.BioMedAq