A profile of the Australian seafood consumer

Seafood is an important food industry globally and increasing seafood consumption is high on the agenda of many developed countries.Understanding consumers is fundamental to the development of any marketing strategy, and while considerable research has been undertaken with European seafood consumers little is known about the seafood consumer in other markets including Australia. This paper presents a profile of the Australian seafood consumer designed to inform the decisions of key stake holders in the seafood industry:producers, middlemen and retailers. The profile has been developed from a range of studies undertaken through the Australian Seafood Collaborative Research Centre, a government supported body with a mission to improve profitability in the seafood industry and increase Australian seafood consumption. Australians consume on average approximately 2.2 serves of seafood per week. Two thirds of all seafood is prepared and consumed at home with 61% of seafood for at - home consumption purchased at supermarkets and 18% at fish markets or fish mongers. Key drivers of seafood consumption are taste, convenience, health,and versatility and these vary across species. Key barriers are price, concerns about origin and freshness and a lack of knowledge/confidence. Overwhelmingly, Australian consumers prefer Australian seafood and 'Australian’ serves as a surrogate for quality, safe, fresh and sustainable

The National Superficial Deposit Thickness Model. (Version 5)

The Superficial Deposits Thickness Model (SDTM) is a raster-based dataset designed to demonstrate the variation in thickness of Quaternary-age superficial deposits across Great Britain. Quaternary deposits (all unconsolidated material deposited in the last 2.6 million years) are of particular importance to environmental scientists and consultants concerned with our landscape, environment and habitats. The BGS has been generating national models of the thickness of Quaternary-age deposits since 2001, and this latest version of the model is based upon DiGMapGB-50 Version 5 geological mapping and borehole records registered with BGS before August 2008

Exploring the impact of recipe cards for seafood at the point of sale

Food consumption and purchase behaviour are highly habituated, with food marketers often attempting to interrupt routine behaviour and thought patterns at the point of sale (POS) through aggressive sales promotion. In the case of food products, recipe cards are a common POS tactic, yet little research has examined the impact of recipe cards at POS. This research explores the impact of recipe cards at POS specifically in relation to seafood with data gathered through 11 face to face depth interviews with fishmongers. Results highlight the positive impact of recipe cards as marketing stimuli for seafood through two key roles: (1) risk reduction for consumers who lack knowledge about how to prepare and serve seafood; and (2) facilitating variety seeking for consumers who are looking for something different. Regardless of the consumers’ motivation for taking recipe cards, the fishmongers perceive that the cards have a positive impact on seafood sales

The influence of food involvement on fish consumption: An Australian case study

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of food involvement as a means of understanding differences in fish consumption levels. This study presents the findings of an online survey of 899 Australian consumers which investigated drivers and barriers to fish consumption among regular, light and very light fish consumers. The findings reveal that higher food involvement leading to increased fish consumption is associated with reduced perceived risk, higher perceived hedonic and symbolic value, and increased product importance. Regular fish consumers are less likely to perceive risk with selecting fish and recognising if fish is fresh than lighter fish consumers. Moreover, regular fish consumers are more likely to perceive higher levels of hedonic value (liking fish and feeling satisfied after eating fish), higher symbolic value (the extent to which people consider eating fish says something about them as a person) and greater product importance (greater interest in food traceability and looking for authentic foods to cook)than lighter fish consumers.Based on these findings, recommendations for increasing food involvement as a means of stimulating seafood consumption through marketing interventions such as consumer information and education, promotional strategies and product development are provided

Food Marketing in Australian Higher Education: The Current State of Play

Food is an essential part of our daily lives, our economy, our society and our culture. In Australia one in six people work in the food industry, yet this importance does not appear to be reflected in the higher education sector with no food marketing courses offered in any Australian Business School, despite food marketing being an emergent discipline within marketing academe globally. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the current state of food marketing education in Australia (as compared to the rest of the world) and make a case for developing food marketing offerings in Australian Business Schools. This is done by establishing the role of food in the economy, defining food marketing, highlighting what is different about food marketing, and highlighting challenges and opportunities for developing food marketing courses

Desirable ICT Graduate Attributes: Theory vs. Practice

The majority of ICT graduates must begin their careers by successfully fulfilling the requirements advertised within online recruitment sites. Although considerable research into employer requirements is commonly undertaken when preparing curricula, studies investigating how well the graduate attributes on which curricula are based match those required by employers have been limited in terms of the techniques used. This study employs an innovative approach of analyzing online ICT employment advertisements in Australia and the United States to determine the key attributes sought by ICT employers, together with the most commonly required skill groupings. A position-based wrapper system was developed to extract the advertisement data, which was then analyzed using a text mining package. The results are benchmarked against those from standard ICT curricula produced by academic and professional bodies. The findings suggest that employers place greatest emphasis upon experience and technological skills; although current curricula meet these requirements, their emphases warrant revision. There also appear to be differences between professional body curricula and the ISCC ’99 curriculum which was produced by industry and academia, with the latter appearing to match employment market demands more closely

Confidence Intervals and Upper Bounds for Small Signals in the Presence of Background Noise

We discuss a new method for setting limits on small signals in the presence of background noise. The method is based on a combination of a two dimensional confidence region and the large sample approximation to the likelihood ratio test statistic. It automatically quotes upper limits for small signals and two-sided confidence intervals for larger samples. We show that this method gives the correct coverage and also has good power.Comment: Document was created by Sciword V3.0, it consists of one main document (lrt.tex), eight figures (figure1.eps - figure8.eps) and one table (table.tex). Paper was revised after being accepted for publication in NIM A Paper was revised after being accepted for publication in NIM

Retailing Underutilised Products: A POS Trial of Australian Oysters

This paper reports the results of a field trial conducted on behalf of the Australian oyster industry designed to increase oyster consumption through POS and in-store sampling. Oyster consumption is characterised by a base of very light consumers, many of whom do not even eat oysters once a year. POS strategies are an effective retailing strategy to drive behavioural change at POS. Five POS strategies were manipulated in seven speciality seafood stores in Australia. The results show that while in-store sampling is the most effective POS strategy, an integrated POS strategy comprising a range of materials has an added impact of educating staff who can then also assist in the sale process. Management commitment to the POS strategies is critical for successful implementation

Sustainable seafood: Understanding current stakeholder perspectives

While sustainability is a topical buzz word for the seafood industry, with a recent Google search on the term ‘sustainable seafood’ scoring over 7.6 million hits, the current literature indicates a lack of consensus on what sustainability means in relation to seafood, particularly when considering the perspectives of the various stakeholders involved, which span governments, NGOs, the seafood industry (producers, processors, middle men and service providers such as retailers), and consumers. This paper reviews the current literature and identifies how each stakeholder group defines sustainability in relation to seafood. Results highlighted several sources of confusion, ambiguity and conflict in the field, including gaps in current research. These results provide an understanding of the various stakeholder perspectives as a starting point for developing strategies by different stakeholder groups