Food Quality - Verbeke Et Al-2006

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Food Qu ality and Prefe renc e18 (200 7)651 –66 1

www.elsevier.com/locate /foodqual

Consum ereva luationof fish qua lityas bas isforfishmarketsegmentationWim Verbeke

a,*, Iris Vermeirb,c

, Karen Brunsød

aGhent University, Department of Agricultural Economics, Coupure links, B-9000 Gent, Belgium

bGhent University, Department of Marketing, Hoveniersberg 24, B-9000 Gent, Belgium

cHogeschool Ghent, Department of Business Administration and Management, Voskenslaan 270, B-9000 Gent, Belgium

dAarhus School of Business, MAPP Centre, Department of Marketing and Statistics, Haslegaardsvej 10, DK-8210 Aarhus, Denmar k

Re ceive d18 April 200 5;receive din rev isedform 1 July 20 06 ;ac cep ted15 Se pte m be r2006

Availableonline13 November2 0 0 6

Abstract

This pap erfocuseson consu me revaluationof fish qu alityan d its ass ociatio nwith fish con sum ption ,risk an d be ne fitbe liefsandinfor- m ationpro ces singva riables .Cross-sectionaldataw erecollectedfrom a sampleof 429consu m ersin March 2003in Belgium. Two dimensions shap efish quality evalua tion:person alrelevanc eattache dto fish qua lity and self-confi den cein fish qualityevaluation,whichallow segment ingthe m arketin four fish consu m ersegments . Thesegmentsare typ ifie das Uninvo lved,Unce rtain,Self-confidentand Connois- seurs,and hav ed istinctivebeh avioura l,attitudinaland socio-dem ograp hicprofi les.The Uninv olvedare m ainly youn g ma les,have the lowestfish consu mp tionlevel,w eake stbelief in health ben efitsfrom eatingfish , and lowestinterestin both searchand creden ceinfor- mationcues.Uncertainfish con sum ersare m ainlyfem ales ,with a tendencyof loweredu cationand urban residence ,who feelnot confiden tto evalua tefish quality,althoug hthey find qualityveryim portan t.Theydisplay a strong interestin a fish quality label. Themost relevantfindings about Self-confidentconsum ers,whose socio-de m og rap hicprofi lem atch esbe stwith the ove rallsam ple,are the irhigh fish con sum ptio nlev el,and the irrela tive lylow inte res tina fishqualitylabel.Conn oisseursare mainlyfema lesin the agec atego ry55+, wh o are strong lyinv olve dwith food in ge ne ralan dmostconvincedof the assoc iationbetw eenfood and hea lth.The yh avethe highest fishconsumpt ionand sho wa stro ngintere stinbo th sea rchand cred enc ecue s,as we llas in a fishquality label.The segm entsdo not differ with resp ectto risk perceptionaboutfish. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Consumer;Fish;Information;Involvement; Perception;Quality;Segmentation

1. Intr oduction

During th e last decades healthy eating habitshave re ceive d increase d at tentio n, and it is widelyre cognised that regular fish cons um ption is onepossible health im proving practice (HogeGe zon dh eidsra ad ,2 0 0 4 ;Sidhu,2003). However, actual fish consumption generallynot eve ncom escloseto the reco mmenda tions to ea t fis htwice a week in m any European countries (Scie ntificAdvisory Committee on Nutrition, 200 4;W elch et al . ,2002) .

*Corresponding author.Tel.:+329 26461 81;fax:+ 329 2646246 .E-mail address: [email protected](W . Verbeke).

A con sid erab le am ou nt of re se arch has sh ed lighton consumers ’ m o tiv es and barriers to fishconsu m ption. Research has espe cially focused onthe relationship between consumption of fish/seafood and attitudes (Brunsø, 2003; Leek,Maddock, & Foxall, 2 0 0 0 ;Letarte,Dube´, & Troche,199 7; Olsen, 200 1; Olsen, 2003), an d the im pact of consumerinvolvement ( Juhl & Pou lsen , 2000 ;Olsen,2 0 0 1 ; Olsen, 2003), role of l ifestyles (Myrland, Tro ndsen, Johnsto n,& Lund , 2000), experie nc e a ndhabit (Myrland et al., 2000; Tro nd se n,Braaten,Lund, &Eggen,2 0 0 4 ; Trondse n,Scho lderer, Lund ,& Eggen, 200 3;Honka-ne n,O lsen, & Verplanken,2005), socio-dem og raphicchar-acte ristics (Myrland et al., 2000; O ls en, 2 003 ; Trondsen

et al., 2003; Trond se n e t al., 2004;Verbeke& Vackier,

0950-3293/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.foodqual .2006.09.005

http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual






mailto:[email protected]







1 4 0 W. Verbeke et al. / Food Quality and Preference 18 (2007) 651–661

2005), he alt hand die tb elie fs( Trondse n e t al ., 2 0 0 3 ; Trond-sen et al., 20 04 ; V erb ek e e t al., 2005), andconvenience(O lsen, 20 03). In co ntrast, re la tively fewstudies have focused on co nsu m ers’ fish qualitype rception and quality evaluation, with a fewexceptions. In on e stud y by Nielsen, Sørensen, andG ru nert (1 997), a qualitative approa chw as applied tode rivequality dim ension s of im portanc eto consum ers,reve aling that de sired qu ality dim ensions are es pe -ciallylinked to he alth and family w ell-bein g, thu s re lat ingtothe pe rson alre lev ance of fish quality.In anotherstudyon co nsu m ers’ quality eva luation , it was found thatmany consumers fee l un ab leto use att rib utes of freshfish to eval- uate the ove rall ex pe cted qual ity ( Juhl &Poulsen, 2000) . Also consumer in teres t for additionalinformation and use of information sources hasonly scarcely been researched with respectto fish(P ieniak, Verbeke , Fruens -gard,Brunsø, & Olsen,2004) . The pre sen tpap er aim sat bridging part of th is ga pin understanding consu m ers’ quality evaluations of fish, thr ou ghfocusing on tw o sp ec ificarea sof consumerevalu-ation of fish quality and their associations withconsumerbeh aviour towards fish. Since m any studiesa lready concen- tratedon the precursors of qualityandqualityperc eptions,w e do not intend to focus on whatfish quality means to specific peop le in this s tudy .Ins tead, w e w ill arg uetha tpe r-son al im portanc ea tta chedto fis h quality , and consumers’se lf-confide nc eto assessfish qua li ty , a re two re levant concepts in the qualityevaluation pro ce ss. It is argued that these twodim ension s influence several steps in th e deci- sio n-mak ing processof fish con sumption, and are ass oci-ated with individual and soc io-dem og raphic fa ctors . The fol lowing section introduces the constructs andth e relations tha t will be inve stigated in this stu dy.Ne xt, m ate rialsan d m ethods are de ta iled ,followed by theprese ntat ionand dis cussio n of the em pirical res ults.

2. Theoretical approach to study consumer evaluationof fish quality

2.1. Dimensions in quality evaluation

F irst , consumers may differ with respectto qualitycon- sc iousnes s,or pers on alrelevanc ea ttache dto q ua lity.Qual- ity conscio usne ss or re le vance is defined as ‘‘amental predispositionto re spond in a consistentway toquality- related aspects which is organised throughlear ning and which influences behaviour” (Steenkamp,1989). Consum- ers wh o are m oreconce rne dwith prod uctquality are likely to have a hig he ru tility, i.e. a higherva luation , for quality products tha n co nsum ers who areunconcernedabout quality. The conceptof subjectivesenseof co ncern toward s an object, or importance orperson al relevance is closely relatedto involvement(Zaichkowsky , 1985), which is also defined as amotivational stateof mind with regardto an objectoractivity (Mittal & Lee, 1989). In this sense, higherinvolveme nt or pers ona lrelevan ceattach edto quality,may im pact on quality eva luation an d its ou tcom es intermsof

de cision-m ak ing . As a result, involvem en t withquality, wh ich refers to im portanc e attache d to qualityor quality consciousness is th e first hypothesisedd im ension of fish qualityevaluation.Secon d, con su m ers often e xp erie nc e q ualityuncertaintybec aus equ ality performa nce, including thetaste sensation and qualityexperienceafter cookingandconsum ption, is difficult to predict based on productch aracter istic s avail- able in the purchas ing situation(Gr un ert, 19 97). Consum- ers face difficulties ineva luating quality, in particular for un branded andhighly perishable food productslike fresh fish ( Juhl &Po ulsen , 20 00). Furthermo re , c onsum ers differ in theirperceptual ab ilities , co gn itive capacities, pe rso na lprefe rences, and ex pe rience level, and therefore,theireval- uation and perception of quality may vary

accordingly (Ophuis & Van Trijp, 1995). In re sponse touncertaintyand lim ited ab ilities , they form qualityexpectationsthrou ghma kinginferencesby using cue sorpiecesof information.One of the ba sic driv ers of in fe rence-m aking per- tains to con fidence in cueutilisation (C ox , 1 9 62), or also co nfid ence in th eperson alability to m ake inferencesb ased onparticularcues(G ru nert, 2005a). Hence,se lf-confidencein makingan evaluation of fish quality is hy pothes ised toco nst itute a second dimension in fish qualityevaluation.Individual differences in quality eva luationshave nu m ero usconsequ en ce s,e.g.in terms of behaviour,beliefsor at titud es, and se archfor an d us eof in form ationsources dur ing decision-making, since expected qualityinfluence s a who le range of attitudes an d behav ioursfrom me al prepa -ration methods to future pu rchasedeci sions (Brunsø, Fjord, & Grunert, 2 0 0 2 ;Grunert,Hartvig Larsen,Madsen,

& Ba adsgaard ,1996) .

2.2. Association with behaviour and beliefs

Co nsume rs who lack the confide nc e in ass essin gfish quality – because of for exa m ple, limitedexperience or low perce ptual ab ility – are expect edto actdiff ere ntly during the decision-making processcomparedto knowledge-able, se lf-confiden t con su m ers.Both product expert ise( i.e . t he ability to performproduct-re la te d t ask s success- fu lly ) and p ro duc tfamiliarity (i.e . the num ber of product- relatedexperiences) are hy pothe sise d to associate withconsumers’ confidence in as sessing pro duct quality, aswell as w ith inv olvement with qua lity.W e expe ctthatconsum-ers who have lim ited co nfidence in assessingfish quality ( i.e. consumers facing high er levels of uncertainty) and/or low er involvement with fishquality, will be less familiar with fish and less inclinedto buy fish.

Lower experience and lower confidence are likelyto asso cia tealso w ith the pe rc eived risk of buyinglowquality or makinga wrongchoicewhenbuying fish,aswell as with fish be nefit percep tion .He nc e, also high errisk perc eption and a more critical attitude towardshealth benefits can be expected amongconsum ers whoare less invo lved and feel less confident aboutev aluating fish quality. Thus, a consumerwho feelsmore confident in judgingfish quality,



can display a m ore favou rable attitude and a higherfish con sum ption pattern as s/he is re latively su re of buying high quality, henc e,at leastthe potential barrierof quality uncertainty is lifted.

2.3. Association with information variables

Co ns umers who fin d qu ality very imp ortant, or whoare h ig hly in vo lved with quality, and/or feel moreco nfi dent in eva luating q uality,m ay hand le information

differentlyas compared to consumers who are morecasual to wards quality.First, pre vious rese arch has also de m onstrated thatprior product kno wled ge or familiaritywith the produ ctinflu- encesthe extentto which consum ers sea rch for,recall and us e inform at ion in jud gem en ts of productquality and in product choice (e.g. Bettman , Lu ce,& Payne ,1 9 9 8 ;Howard & Sheth, 1969;Rao & Monroe, 1988) .Increased famil iar i ty leads to bet ter-d evelop edknowledgestructures or associative ne tworks ab ou t aproduct that tr igger the use of spe cific eva luativecr ite ria and ru les for product assessm ents. Co nsequently,dep ending on familiarity with the product (and henc ehavingmoreor lessconfi- de nce), consum er sdiff ere dinth eir u se of information in pro duct ev alua tion ingeneral(Park & Lessig, 1981). Spe- cific ally, both thetype of information cues used, and the number andrelative impo rtance attached to information sourcesdiffered by th e level of produ ct -specific buyingexperience (Kline & Wagner , 1994). As se lf-confide nc ein quality evaluation is expected to be ass oc iatedwithcon- su m ers’ prod uct ex pertise ,w e expect that the lev elof se lf- co nfiden ce will also influence the use of informationso urce san d inform ation cu es .

Se cond, a m ultitude of rese arch ha s fo cu ssed on therela- tionship be tween se arched or used informationcues and expected or experien ced qu ality. Brandname and price are often consid ere d as ind icationsof product quality (Boulding& Kirmani, 1993;Dodds,Monroe, & Grewal,1991). Pre vious rese arch co nc lud ed that the use of

specificqual ity cues associates with product experience(Bredahl ,2 0 0 3 ;R ao & Monroe, 1988) , product interest orknowledge(Sa wyer, Wo rthing , & Sendak , 197 9;Ze ithaml, 1988)andperceived decision d ifficulty (Lambert, 1 972;Pechm ann&

Ra tnesh w ar, 19 92 ;Saw ye ret al., 19 79 ;Zeitham l, 1988) .In othe r wo rds, consum ers wh o find it hard toevaluate ,

for exam ple, product quality, are likely to usedifferentat tr ibutes to ba se the irpurcha se de cision on comparedtocon sum ers wh o can easily assess product qua lity. Asindi-cated befo re,w hether a consumerwill use a qualitycuedep ends on the predictive value of th e cue and th econfi-d en ce th e c on su m e r h as in h is /her ab ility tocomprehendth e cu e co rre ctly (C ox , 1 96 2; S te enk amp, 1990).Differentc ue s e m e rge when persona l ability (and hence self-confi-dence) to judge pro duc t quality differs. Es pe ciallywhenco nsum ers ca nnot ju dg e qu ality , b ran d n am esfrequentlyemerge as an imp ortan t ev alu ative crite rion or as asurro-gate indicator of quality (Boulding & Kirmani,1993) .

An individual w ho does no t atta ch gre at im portanc eto qual i ty,may base his/herdecisionon attr ibutes likeprice, ex pirydate and conven ien ce(pr ep aration) an d m ayuse less inform ation cues, w hile the ap pe arance of th efish, control certificate or th e po ss ible p rese nceof harmful ingredients (in trinsic /credence attr ibutes ) canbe more important to the con sum ers perceiving qualityand their abil ity to evalu - ate qu ality as im portant.Furtherm ore,con sum ers wh o feel lessconfident in ratingfish quali ty can be more prone to use con trolce rtifica tes or us e fam ilia r , knowledgeab le ortrustworthy sources (e.g. friend s, fam ily, fish m onger ) ascomparedto the m ore self-confid entconsum er. In thespe-cific caseof freshfish, a relevant question pe rtain sto th e potential of quality lab els as an informa tioncue, and whether quality labels could perform afunction similar to bra nds, i.e. alleviatin g low self-confidence .

2.4. Association with demographics, individual’s food

involvement and food-health awareness

Finally, we propose th at the tw o hypoth esisedcompo- nents of quality eva luation – involvementwith quality and self-confi den cein quality assessme nt–are as so ciate d w ith ind ividual characterist ics , such associo-demographics, cognitive and motivationalvariables.Previous research ind icated that personalattribute imp ortance – resultingfrom its instrumentality– is am ong sto thers related to a consumer’s socio-demographic profile, kn owledge and involvement(En gel, B lackwell , & Miniard, 1995). Conse- quently,consumerswho atta ch d iffe rent im portance to qualityin a food con text could also diffe r in their individualcha racteristics. Rele van tindividual characteristics arefor instan cesocio-demographic chara cteristics, as we ll asindi- vid ual’s invo lvement with food in gen eral, andindividual’s awarenessof the rela tionship bet w eenfood and health, wh ich are quite relevant in th especific case of fish that has a predominantly healthyimage(Nielsen et al., 1997) . Also a consumer’s self-confidencein eva luating quality can be re lated toind ividual charac ter istic s. Sp ec ific ally, prod uc texp ertisean d fam iliar ity havebeendem onstratedto be re lated toindividual d ifferences in so cio-demographic profile,involvement(Celsi & Olson, 1988) and product- specifickn owledg e (Park & Lessig, 1981) .

2.5. Research objectives

Throug h this rese arch, we first aim at va lidating th etwo hypothesised dim ension s in relation to fish qualityevaluation,i.e. involvem en tw ith fish qua lity and se lf-confidencedu ring pro duct e va luation. Se cond, we aimatsegmenting consumers based on their fish qualityevaluation profile and to an alyse individ ua ldifferences that determine or ex pla in consum erdecision-making in generaland information searchregarding fish in particular. The rationale for startingfro m qu ality ev alu ation -based se gmenta tion is that th ehypothesised quality dim ension s can potentia lly bealtered through appropriate co m m unica tion.Brunsø



Family size

1 or 2 persons 48.5

3 or 4 persons 38.0 Region

5 or morepersons 11.9 West-Flanders 24.2

East-Flanders 19.7

et al. (2 00 2)already stressedthat grouping con sum ersinto se gments w ith sim ilar characteristics can provide abetter un derstand ing of c onsum pt io n pat te rns.Furthermore, seg- m en tatio n fo llow ed by targetedinform ation prov ision has b e en s ug g este d to be ava lua ble ro ute for reducing uncertainty at th econsum er level, an d effective ly cha ng ing con- sumerbehaviour(Verbeke, 20 05;Kornelis, De Jonge, Frewer,& Dagevos, 2006). Th e follow ing section pres ents th eproced uresfollow ed in orderto meettheseobjectives.

3. Materials and methods

3.1. Sample and procedure

Surv ey data w ere collected throu gh questionnairesdur- ing March 2003 in Belg ium. A quota sam plingprocedurewith age as main qu ota con trol cha racteristicwasapplied. Respondents w ere e ither se lectedth ro ughadoor-by-door random walk procedure or atsupermarkets. All respon- dentswere responsible forfood pu rchasin g within their household. They werecheckedagainst the age quotaand asked for theirparticipation in the surv ey . The question- na ire w a sfully self -a dministered. The total sample consisted of 429 respondents, 284women and 1 45 m en . It is im portan t to note thatth e non -probability sam pling m etho d and resp on dentse lection pro ce dure s do not yield a stat istica llyrepresentat ive sample, hence not al lowinggenera lisation s to the overal l population.Nevertheless, with th e characteristics aspre sented in Table 1, the sa m ple cove rs a wide rangeof consumers in terms of socio-demographics. Withrespectto age, a small over-sampling of youngerrespondents (<25 years) occurred . The age of th eresp ondents rang edfrom 29 to 83 ye ars ,with a meanof 40 .6 (SD = 15.0) . The pre sen ceof children in th e

hou seh oldclose lym atch es

Table1Socio-demograph ic character istics of the sam ple (% of

respondents ,

n = 4 2 9 )

Gender Children <18 in the family

Male 33.1 Yes 26.4

Female 66.9 No 73.6

Age Income class (per month)

625 years 21.9 685 0 € 5.9

2 6 to 35 years 17.5 850–1,700 € 25.6

3 6 to 45 years 22.9 1700 –2550 € 36.4

4 6 to 55 years 22.9 >25 50 € 32.1

> 55 years 14.9Mean (S.D.) 40.6(15.0) Education

618 years 32 .6

> 18years 67 .4

Antwerp 56.1

the dis tr ibution in the pop ulation. Th e av era gefam ilysize in the sam ple (2.9 pe rso nsper fam ily) is so m ewha thigher in comparisonwith the population (2.4personsper family) (NIS, 2002) .

3.2. Measurement of constructs

First, eight items pertaining to fish qualityevaluation were p resented and scored on fiv e-pointinterval scales ranging from ‘‘totally disagre e” to‘‘totally agree”. Four item spert ained to the perceivedim portan ce of fish quality and makinga good decisionwhen evaluat ingfish quality, wh ere asthe othe r fouritemspertained to the self in relation to fish qualityevalua tio n ,i.e . the pe rc eive d difficulty or uncertaintyinm ak ingfish quality evaluations.

Second, total fish consu m ption and co ns um ption of fresh and processed (d ried , sa lte d or smoked) fishw eremeasured on a seven-point frequency scale rangingfrom‘‘daily” to ‘‘never”. In add itio n , w e a sked o u rrespondentsho w m an ytimes (ou t of ten) fishis chose n w he nv isitingarestaurant. Furthermore, we confronted our

respondentswith 10 fish species and asked if th ey ev er cons u m edthese(yes/no). The choice of species w as ba se d onconsumerp an e l d ata for fis h con su m ption in Belgium (GfK ,2003) ,with cod, salmon, and tuna being considered ascommonlyknown and frequently consumed fish spec ies;her ring ,m ac kerel , and sardines as processed fish species,which

are usu ally canned or marinated; and sole, turbot,brilland angle r as more exclusive fish species that aremoreexpensive and/or require specific cooking skills. The

latter

speciesare consum ed less frequently at home,whilemoreoften on special occ asion s or inre stauran ts.

Third, con su m erbeliefsin potential health benefit sand

r isks f rom consum ing fish were assessedon five-poin tLik-er t sc ales . Three groups of sc ientific ev ide nc e-basedhealthben efitswere included.Basedon the evidencethat fishcon-ta in s vita min D, which i s essentia l for bonemineralisation,th e sta te m ents that regular fish consumptionimprovesbone development and makes people strong wereincluded. Three stateme nts w erein clude dba sed on fish’s contentof omega-3fatty acids, and its potentialbeneficialrole



inth e pre ventio n of coro nar y hea rt disease an d certa incan-cers .Finally, giv en the pr es ence of DHA in fish, anditspotentialrole in brain development, consum ers’ beliefsin

the state m ents that eating fish stimulate s braindevelop-ment and ma kes people sma rt were m easured.Similarly,consumers’ risk beliefs w ere assessed as the beliefsth atfishcontains PCBs and d iox ins, pesticid e and otherresidues,heavy metals,veterinary drug residues, and colorantsaspotentialharmfulsubstances.

Fourth, respondents were asked to ind icate (ye s/n o)which information sources they use to gain

knowledgeabout fish. Potent ia l sources of fish information

included

w ere m ass m edia (te levision, radio, new spaper,m ag azines) ,personal sources ( fr iends an d fa mily , fish dealer),m ark et-ing or commerc ia l sources (reta ilers , comm erc ia ladvertis-ing) and gov ernment. Also consum ers’ use of 11 on-pack



% Varianceexplained 26 .0 2 5.3

Cronbach’s a internal 0.6 2 0 .6 8

or on- label in form ation cuesfor fish was assessedon afive - po in t sca lerang ingf rom ‘‘do not use at all” until‘‘use very m uch”. Finally, consume rinterest in a fishquality label

Table2

Factor loadingsfrom principa lcomponentanalysisfor evaluationof

fish

quality

w as m ea sured on a five-pointLikert scaleusingthe

item

‘‘I would be interested to s e e a quality label onfishproducts”.

Fifth, generalinvolvement with food w asm easured

us ing the 12-item sca le proposedby Bell andMarshall(2003). The four-item food-hea lth aw arenes ssca leprevi-ous lyusedby Ra gaert, V erbe ke ,Devlieghere, an dDebe -vere (2004)and Verbeke et al. (2005)w as appliedto

m ea sure consum eraw are ne ssof the relationbetw eenper-sonal food habits and health status. Thequestionnairefinallyincludeda number of soc io-dem og raphicvariable slike age, gender, educa tion , p re sence of children inth ehousehold and liv ing enviro nm ent.

3.3. Analyses procedures

Da ta w erean alysed usin gSP SS 12 .0.First , thre eexplor-atory factor analyses we re performed independently todis- co ve r the basic struc tureunder lying themea suresof fish quality evaluation, fish benefit be liefs , andinteres t in infor-

Qualityis impo rtantwhe nchoosingfishEasewhenevaluatingfish qualityisimportant

Risk of makinga badfish choiceis importantMaking the rightdec isionwhen choosingfis h isimportant

I believ ethat fish has a

goodquality

I find it difficultto judgefish quality

a

I neverknow if I makethe

rightdecisionwhenbuyingfish

a

Thereis a goodch anc ethatI makea bad choice

a

reliability

Factor1Involvementwith

fish quality

0.63

0.68

0.76

0.78

Factor2Se lf-confid en ceto

as se ssfis h quality

0.54

0.59

0.82

0.80

mation cues on fish lab els. The relia bility of th ere sultingfac tors was t es tedby Cronbach’s a m easure of internal

reli-abilityconsistency.Next, h ie ra rchical and K-mean sclusteran alysis us ingt he fis h qua lity eva lu ation fa ctor s w ereper-formed to obtain consumerse gment s. Finally,bivariate

an alyses inclu ding cro ss -ta bulati on an d O ne -Way

ANOVAcomparison of m ea nsw ere used to pro file the clustersintermsof behaviour, beliefs, use of informationsources,in te rest in informa tion cues ,and socio-demographics.

4. Empirical results

4.1. Exploratory factor solutions

First, factor analysis using principal compo nentswith the eight items perta iningto fish qu ality ev aluationyieldeda two-f actor solut ion, ex plaining 51 .3%of th evariance in the or igin al data( Table2). Factor 1 include sthe item sthat refer to the im portan ce attached to fishquality and th e im portan ce of makinga good decisionor the right choice whe n ch oosing fish. Th is factorcorresponds with personal re levance or im portan ceattachedto quality,and will fur-

aSc ore srev ers edbe foreanalysis.

Co nseque ntly, respondents’ aggregate scores on th etwo fac tor sw ere ca lculate d to be us ed as cla ssifica tion(segmen-tation)variablesin subsequentcluster analysi(seenext section).Se con d, princ ipal com po nent ana lysis rev ea led tw oben-efit be lie ffactors . Th e first factor per ta insto be lief inphys - ical health benefits (a = 0.68) , includingbenefits with respect to bone de ve lopm en t, andcancer and coronaryheartd iseaserisk reduction. Thesec ond factor include sthe items referring to mentalhe alth be nefits (a = 0.72) ,i .e .bra in developme nt ( Table3). Beliefsrelatingto harmful substances in fish (PC Bs,dio xins, res idues , heavy m etals an d co lorants) allcon st ituted one factor. Third, principal component analysdistinguished betw eeninterestin cred en ceversusse archinformation cue s

Table3Factor loadingsfrom principal componen tanalysis for fish ben efitbeliefs



ther be re ferred to as ‘‘Involvement with fish

quality”. The se cond factor re pre sents an ev alu ativ ejud gemen tof fish qua lityan d threeitem sreferrin gto pe rc eive d e as eor

Eatingfish Factor1Physical

benefits

Factor2Mental

benefits

difficulty in personalevaluationsof fis h quality . S inc ethis factor co rrespon ds with respondents’ personal

beliefs

Re duc esthe risk for heartandcoronarydisease 0.79

about quality, and perc eive d diffi culty or co nfiden cein their fish quality ass essme ntab ility, it is fu rtherreferred to as the ‘‘Se lf-confidence in fish qualityevaluation”. The reliabilities of the quality importanceand self -assessment ab il it y const ructs w ere ass essedusing Cron bach’s a. Both involvementwith fishquality(a = 0.62)and self-confid enc e(a = 0.68) had su ffi cientinternal reliability consistency.

Re duc esthe risk to developcancer 0.78St im u lates bon edevelopment 0.63

Makesmestronger 0.62

Makesmesmarter 0.89

Stim ulates cere bra ldevelopment 0.72

Prolongslife 0.60

% Varianceexplained 3 1.8 26 .1

Cronbach’s a internalreliability 0.68 0 .72



Table4

Factor loadings from principal componentanalysis for interest

in

informationcueson fish labels

es t s el f- confidence in evaluating fish quality. Theirlow involvement with fish quality fits withth eir overalllowestfo od in volve m ent an d th e lowes t aw ar eness of th erelation-

Factor 1

Cre den cecue s

Countryof origin 0.81

Capturedor farmed 0.81Controlcertificate 0.73

Dietarycomposition 0.73

Even tualh arm fu lsubstances 0 .67

Healthbenefits 0.66

Capturedate 0.61

Factor2Searchcues

sh ip betwee n food and health. Th e se cond and largest segment (3 7.1% of th e sa m ple )

also ac knowledg estha t the y have little self-con fid en ceinevaluatingfish quality, although th ey va lue fishqualityrath erhighlya s refl ected in theirhigh ersco reon fishqual-ity imp ortance, there f ore be ing referred to asUncertainfish con sum ers. Their generalfood involvementdoesnot

diff erfrom the firs tse gment,bu t the seconsum ers are so m e-Price 0.77

Typeof fish 0.75

Expirationdate 0.62

Weight 0.52% Varianceexplained 32.5 17.1

C ronbach’s a internal reliability 0.83

0.62

on fish labels (cfr. Darby & Karni, 1 9 7 3 ;Nelson, 1 9 7 0 ;Nel- son , 1974) ( Tab le 4 ). Sea rchcuesa re thosethat thecon- sumer can determine by inspection prior topurchase(Nelson, 197 4,p. 730), like price , exp irationdate and type of fish (a = 0.62) .Credence cues arequal it ies that the consumer may not eas ily or evenne ve r as sess beca us e of lack of expertise or taskdifficulty (G ru nert, 2005b), like th epresenceof harmfulingre dients, health be nefi ts,cap ture date, wild versusfarmed, contro l certificate, country of origin anddietary com po sition (a = 0 .8 3).

4.2. Cluster analysis

First, h ierarchica l c lustering was performed withinspec- tion of the agglomeration schedu le andde ndrog ramallow- ing us to decide that a four clustersolution would be optimal. Next, a K-means c lusteranalysisusingWard’s m eth odwa spe rforme d with initialcluste rcen tres resulting from the hie rarchical p roc ed ure . The respectivesize and sco res on the segmenta tionva riable s are re ported in Table5, tog ether w ith a comparison of the clu ste rsin termsof ge neralfood invo lvem en tand food -health aw arene s s .

S e g m e n t1 (2 5.2% of th e sa m ple) can be ty pified asUninvolved fish consumers. These consum ers reportboth the lowes t im portan ce at tach edto fish quality an dth e low-

what better aware of the relations hip betw eenfoodand health.Co nsumers be longing to the third segm ent (28.5%of the sample) fee lquite self-confiden t in ev aluating fish

quality, and consider fish quality as important. Theyare more involved with food in ge ne rala s co mparedto th e Unin- volved and Uncertain . This s e g m ents willbe ty pified as Se lf-co nfiden t fish consumers . The sm allest segment (9.1%of the sam ple )can betypi- fie d as fish Co nn oisseu rs as the se consu m ers fee ltheyare m os tab le to ev alu ate fish quality and ap pra isequality also as an extremely important aspect whenpu rchas ing fish. These connoisseurs also display thehighestgeneralfood involvement, a s w ell as the high estaw arene ss of th e rela- tio ns hip b etw e en f o od a ndhealth.

4.3. Profiling of the clusters

4.3.1. Fish consumption behaviour

Differences relating to fish qual ity evaluation areclearly reflectedin fish consu m ption be hav iour( Table6). Total claimed fish consu m ption differs significantlybetw eenthe s e g m ents (F = 8.25, p < 0 .0 01). Co nn oisse ursand Self -confidentfish consumers show the highestfish cons um ption frequ enc y(notethat 1 denotes‘‘daily”,w here as7 den otes

‘‘never”) . Un certa in fish consume rs ma inly eat fish afew tim es pe r month , wh ile Un involved fish consum erseat fish approximately only once a month. In ad di tion ,th e four segm ents display different consum ptionpat terns of fresh fish (F = 9.24, p < 0.0 01), thou gh notfor processed fish. Espe cially co nsum ers who claimhigh self-confid ence in evaluating fish quality(Con nois se urs and Se lf-confid en t)

Table5

Profileof co ns umer seg m en ts(n = 429)on dimensionsof fish qualitype rception and foodinvolvement

Segment1 Uninvolvedfish consumers Segment2 Uncertainfis h co ns umers Segment3 Self-confidentfish consumers Segment4 Fish

Connoisseurs

Segmentsize(%of sample)Involvement with fish 25.2

3.17a

37.1

4 .05c

28.5

3.65

9 .1

4.49quality

Self-confidence to assess

fish

quality

3 .02a 3 .07a 3.87b 4 .11c

Food involvement 3.16a 3.23a 3.36b 3.54c

Food-he althawa reness 3.51a 3.64b 3.6 7b 3.89c

Differentletters(a–b–c–d)indicatesignificantly diff ere ntav era gesco reson five -poin tscale susingANOVA an d LSD posthoctest .



Table6

Fish consumption behaviou r

Segment1 Segment2 Segm ent3 Segm ent4

Table7

Food-health awareness,risk and benefitbeliefsand informationprocess-

ing acrosssegm ents

Uninvolved

Consumption frequency

Uncertain Self-confident Connoisseurs Segment1

Uninvolved

Segment

2

Uncertain

Segment3Self-

co nfi dent

Segment4Connois-

seurs

Fish totala

3.93a 3 .56b 3 .12c 2 .97cFreshfish

a

5.15a 4.84a 4.34b 3.99bProcessedfisha 5.84a 5 .78a 5.74a 5.69aBenefit and risk beliefs

a

Belief in physicalbe ne fitsfromfish3.23a 3.27a 3.43b 3.48b

Fish in

restaurant

(on 10 visit s)

3 .83 a 4 .61 b 5 .89 c 6 .5 0c Belief in mental

be ne fitsfrom

fish

Beliefthatfish

2 .93a 2 .86a 2 .97a 2 .97a

3 .01a 2 .98a 2 .88a 2 .95a

Type of fishb

(% yes)

Commonfish 92.6 8 5.5 9 5.9 9 4.9

Processedfish 44.4 3 8.4 4 3.4 4 3.6

Exclusivefish 13.9 1 8.9 3 5.2 3 8.5

aSeven-point scale: 1 = e v e r yday ; 7 = n e v e r; diff ere ntlette rsindicatestatisticaldifferences.

containsharmfulsubstances

b

Information variablesa

Use of fish inform ationso urc es(% yes )Mass media 39.8 49 .1 5 0 .0 3 5 .9

Personalsources 67.3 63 .5 6 1 .5 6 4 .1b

Common= salmon,cod, tuna;Processed= herring,mackerel ,sar-dines;Exclusive= sole,turbot,angler,brill.Marketing or

co m mercial

43.5 5 5.3 50.0 53.8

ea t fresh fish moreregularly, while the Uninvolved con-

Government

Interestin credenc

12.0

3.13a

14.0

3.56b

12.4

3.47b

13.5

3.97c

su m e f reshfish lea stfrequently. info rm ation cue s

Furthermore, from th e total sample ,9.4% indicated Interestin search 4.02a 4 .23b 4.2 5b 4.3 8b

neverto choose fish in a restaurant while 5.5%alwa sin orm ation cues

n eres n a s . a . . a . . qualitylabel

their fish consumption in restaurants (F =1 3 . 1 1 ;

p < 0.0 01). Un involved fis h co nsum ers choose fish lessthan4 times out of ten res tau rant vis its , w h ileConnoisseurschoose fish in a restaurant 6.5 t imes (out of ten) on

avera ge.Finally, w e ask ed the resp ond ents w hich specificfish

species they consume . From th e total sample,only2.3%indicated they neve r eat com m on fish species likesa lm on,cod or tuna, while 18.4%claim to nevereat processedfish(herring, m ackerel or sa rdine s) and 29 .1 % nev er ea tth em ore exc lusive fish spe cies. The seg ments diffe rin theircon-

su m ption (penetrat ion )of com m on (v2 = 10.54, p <0.05)and exclusive (v2 = 21.24, p < 0.001)fish, but not of

pro-ce sse dfish spe cies , which is in line w ith th e fin ding saboutclaimed processed fish consum ption . Common fish islessco nsum ed by Un certain consum ers.E xclusive fish ismostco nsum ed by Self-co nfiden t co ns um ers andConnoisseurs,

i.e. the two segments with high er levels of self-confidencein evaluating fish

quality.

4.3.2. Fish benefit and risk beliefs

Beliefs in ph ysical he alth ben efi tsfrom eating fisharenot equal ly strong amon g the four se g ment s (F =3.81, p < 0.0 1), wh ile all se gments have the sa m esm aldisb elief in mental health benefits from fishconsump tion ( Table7) . W i th respectto risk beliefs (the belief that fishcontains co ntaminants), m ean scores are close to them idpoin t of th e fiv e-p oint sca le an d the y do no t diff ersignifica ntly between thefour con sum er seg ments.

4.3.3. Information varia bles

The four segment s do not differ with respecttoth e claimed use of m ass m ed ia, persona l orgov ernment



aDiff eren tletters(a–b –c–d )indicatesignifi cantly different aver ag esco reson five -poin tscale susingANOVA an d LSD posthoctest .

bIncluding:dioxins,PCB, pest icide ,antib iotic or hormone residues,artificialcolorants,heavymetals.

info rm ation source s (see T ab le 7 ). Only a m argina lsignifi- cant effect i s found for m arketing orcomm ercial sources(v

2= 14.96, p = 0.092) ,with atendency of lower u se of comm ercial sources byUninvolved fish consumers .

The m ean scoresof th e fo ur se gments on th e twoinfor- m atio n cue fac tors are rep ort ed in Tab le 7. Ingeneral, consu m ers are more interested insearch information (M = 4.20)than in credence(M =3.47 )information from fish (t = 20.67, p < 0 .001). Fro m a llse gments ,fi sh Connois- seur s arethe m os tin tereste dincredence information cue s , w h ile Un involv ed fishconsumers a re the least interested.Un certa in and S elf-co nfi dent consum erssco re in between the other twosegments. Conc erning search information, Uninvolvedfish consu m ers are slightly less interested, but nod iff erence s in searc hcu e interest are seen between theothe r segments (ceiling eff ec t). We will elaborate moreon th es ere sults lat erin the di sc ussio n section.

Finally, ma jor d ifferences exist betw eenthe segmentswith respect to c la imed interest in a fish qualitylabel

(F = 5.46, p < 0 .0 01). Connoiss eur s and Uncertainfishconsumers claim a stro nger intere st as com pa red toUnin-volved and Self-confident fish cons um ers. Thesefindingsindicate that fish labels have som e po tentia l a s aqualitycue s ince they may appea l to in teres ts of consumerswithhigh fish quality involvem ent, a s w ell as a valuabletokenof quality for Uncertain fish co nsum ers wi th poor se lf -con-fidence in eva lu atin g fi shquality.



1 4 6 W. Verbeke et al. / Food Quality and Preference 18 (2007) 651–661

Table8 (referred to as invo lvem en tw ith fish quality) and self -Socio-demographiccharacteristics of the cons um erseg m en ts(n =429) ,

freq ue ncydist ributions (% )

fidence in eva luating fish quality. Both dimensionsarerelatedto behavioural and information processingvari-

Segment1

Uninvolved

Socio-demographic profile (%)

Segment 2

Uncertain

Segment3

Self-

confident

Segment4

Connoisseursables and they vary between consumers, which is inline w ith ex pe ctat ions based on consumer behav iourl iterature. U sin g th ese d im ension s for marketsegmentation purpo ses throughclus ter an alysis rev ea lsfourclusters,which showa

Female 5 7.9 72 .2 6 4 .8 7 6.3Age < 25years 38.3 19 .7 14 .8 7 .9

Age > 55years 8.4 22 .9 6.6 26.3

highly consisten t pict ure in termsof characteris ticslike food involvementand food-hea lth aw aren ess,aswell as

Highereducation(>ageof 1 8 )

Children

younger

than

18 yea rs

Higherincome(>1,700 €/

month)

CoastalregionWest-

Flanders

7 9.2 5 9.3 67 .5 6 7.6

2 2.2 2 6.4 29 .5 2 8.2

7 0.2 6 7.4 66 .3 7 5.0

2 3.4 2 2.8 23 .8 2 8.9

in terms of fish consu m ption behaviour , risk andbenefit belie fs and interest in fish in fo rm ation .Furthermore , the segments can be pro file dus ingc lassicalsoc io-demographic variableslike ag e and g ender , wh ichyields opportunitiesfor ta rgeted com m unica tion eff or ts. The Uninvolved and Unce rtain fi sh con su m ershav elit-

tle confidencein their fish quality ev alu ation abilities . Thisassociates with lower fish consum ption levels, i.e.lowerproduct experience, which corroborates Park andLessig(1981) and C els i a nd O lso n (1 98 8). Uninvolved

consumersUrban 3 1.1 42 .4 3 2 .5 2 8.9

4.3.4. Demographics

Table8 presents the so cio-dem og raphic characteristicsof the segments fro m the cluster an alysis. Signific an tlymore w omen be long to the se gment s of Unce rtain fis hconsumersand fish Co nnoisseu rs (v

2= 7.75, p < 0.0 5),whereas m enrath erbelong to the seg m ent of Un involve dfish consumers. In gen er al, females (M = 3 .82 ) a refound to be more involved with fish qua lity ascomparedto m en(M = 3.62)(F = 14.46, p < 0.0 01), whileno significan tge nde rdifferenceis found in se lf-c onfide nc ein evaluatingfishquality.

With respect to age, co nsumers aged below 25years belong particularly to the Uninvolved fishconsumer seg- m ent, while 55 + aged consumers aresignificantly m ore clas - sifie d as Uncertain fishconsumers or fish Connoisseurs (v

2= 53.60 , p < 0.001).In general, as a geincreases, involve - m ent with fish qualityincreases (F = 12.81 , p < 0 .001). Con- sumers agedbetween 40 an d 55 describe themselves as the mostconfident in evaluating fish quality, while consumersyounger than 25 years rate themselve s as th e least ableto eval- uate fish quality (F = 8.68, p < 0 .001). Educationlevels differ only m arginally between the four

segments (v2

= 15.83, p = 0.071), w ith a tendency thatconsumers with a lower education belon g m ore to theUncertain fish consumer segm ent.No significa nt d iffere nces between the segm ents arefound related to presence of ch ildren younger tha n 18 ,income, region, and place of re sidence. Consum ersbelon ging to th e lowest incom e class (net family incom ebelow 850 euro per m onth) are less involved w ith fi shquality as compared to consum ers w ho ea rn m ore (F =3.93, p < 0.01). Inhabit- ants of rural areas display ahigher involvement with fish quality a s compared tourban residents (F = 4.07, p < 0.05) .

5. Discussion and conclusions

Resu lts rev ea l t ha t fish qualit y eva lua tio n ismultidimen- sio nal, in tegra tin g the perceive d im portanceof fish quality

are by far the least involved w ith fish qu ality , w hichlogi- cally results in (or f ro m ) lo w es t in te rest ininformation. Raising th eir in volvement with fishquality, for instance throu gh stressing pers ona lh ealthbenefitsfrom fish consumption, emerges as th e m ostchallenging co m m unication strategyfor this particularse gment. Sinc elow involvem en tusually associates withless exte nsive decision-making (Engel et al., 19 95),providing too many rational informa- tio n (cognitiv eargumenta tio n)is at ris k of low eff ect ivenessamongthisse gm ent. Instead, aff ec tive arg uments relating topersonal health may stand a be tter ch an ce with th eUn inv olved fish consu m ersegment.Whereas Uncertain fish consumers do not differfrom the Uninvolved in terms of risk and benefitbeliefs and f resh fish consumptio n , t hey do withrespectto fish consumption at restauran ts. Clearly,Uncertain consumers , who are relatively h ighlyinvolved with fish quality, put trust in a third partylike an experiencedchef in a restau-rant,more than inthe ir own purchasing, cooking and fish qualityevaluation skills. In a similar vein, Unc ertain fishconsumers display a strong interest in a fish qualitylabel and display co ns iderable interest in bothcredence and search information c ue s. A pp arently,they a re p ro ne to pu t trus t in other people orinstitutions,and would rega rda fish qu al ity label as ausefultoken of product quality, whichis in line withpre viou sstudies by for instance Shap- iro (1983) ,Raoand Bergen (1 992), Dodds et al. (1991) ,Boulding and

Kirmani (1993)and Bred ah l (20 03). The Uncertainfishconsum ersalso ten d to makemoreuseof marketingorcom m ercial inform ation sour ces abou t fish quality.With this profile, the Unc ertain fish consumersconstitute the most interest ing segment for fishquality labelling and information provision fromtrustwor thy or credible information sourc es. It shouldbe noted also that this segment is the larg est of th esa m ple, ac co unting for m ore tha n one third of the fishconsumers. This segment disp lay ssom e parallelsw ith these gment of ‘co nc er ned consumers’in the me atm arketas iden tified by Verb eke and



Vackier (2 004). These co nsum ers strongly red uc edme atconsumption as a consequenceof m eat safetycr ises,prob- ably shifted to fish, but f ee l unce rtain withrespectto th e ev alu ation of fish quality. This was a l s oth e segment that wa s expected to show the stro ngestinterest in meat labels an d strongest belief in m eattraceability.Se lf-confiden t fish consumers and fish

Connoisseursreported equally high fish co ns um ption

frequencie s .B esides ba sic d iff e rences in involvement with fishqualityan d se lf-con fid en cein eva luating fish quality – w ithCon-no isseurs rep orting hig he r sco res on both dim ensions–the se seg ments only differ with respect to interestininform ation , m ore sp ec ifically cre dence info rm ationcuesand a fish quality label. Ap parently, se lf-con fidencecom-bined with lower invo lvement (as compared toconnois-seurs) leads to lowe r in te rest in credenceinformation,in cluding lower in terest in a fish qua lity label. Thesegmentof Se lf-confide nt fish consumers inc ludes m o reyoungerconsumers,w ho are either convincedthat fish has ahighen ough qu ality stand ard, or who associate qualitymore

st ro ngly with experience attr ib utes like convenienceandtaste. Fish Connoisseurs are open to moreinformation,es pecial ly of the creden cetype. They also display thestron-ge st interest in a fish qual ity label, despite their highper-sonal confidence in eva luating fish quality. Sincequalityis all too im portan t for fish connoisseurs, anyadditionalinformation signalling product quality, e.g . through aqual-ity label, is warmly we lcom ed. This corro boratesGrunert,Bre dahl, and Brunso (2 004)who indicated that labelsarem ostly asso ciated with highe r qua lity. The stronginterestin quality lab els fits with fish Co nnoisseu rs’ hig hinvolve-m en tp rofile, both to fish and food in general,which ispro-ve n ag ain to asso ciate w ith more op enne ssan d re ad iness

toprocess information, in line with the involve m en t –knowl-

edge assoc ia tion as set forth by Park and Moon(2003).Finally, it should be noted that both th e Self-co nfi dentand Con noisseu rs disp lay the high est belief in healthbene-

fits fro m fish consu m pt ion, though the score around3.4–3.5 de fin itely leaves som e room for furtherimprovementthrough appropriate comm unicationefforts.

Be side sthe iden tification of re lev an tfis h consu m erseg-

ments based on qua li ty evaluation, this study alsoconfirmsassocia tions between involvem ent defined asper ceive dim portance an d product exp erience an d inte res t in

infor-mation . In this sp ec ifi c ca se of fish, productexperienceassociates with higher involvem ent with quality, andinter-est in qualityinformation.

An other fin din gis that the sm allinc idence of scepticism

in mental ben efits de riving from fis h co ns um ption and–more importantly – risk pe rception do not differ

betweense gments tha t diff er stro ngly with resp ect to fishconsump-tion. This is indicative tha t disb eliefs and riskperc eptions

are no t reg arded as m ajor ba rrier s to eatingfish.

Furthermore, this study reveals some relev ant issueswith

respec t to credence qu alities of fish , an d fis h qu alitylabelingin pa rticular. W hereas previous research indicated thatcon-sumers in general attach increasing importance tocredence



qualities (W andel & B ugge, 19 97), and sometimes e venequal importanc e to credenc e an d search qu alities(Bernue´s , Olai- zola, & Corcoran, 2003), we mustconclude that this does not necessarily hold in th especific case of fish. Interest in credence attribute s isranked substantially lower than interest in searchattributes. The gap betw een interest in search versuscrede nce attributes is highest among consum ers withlow levels of both involvement with quality and personalconfi- dence in evaluating fish qu ality (Uninvolved fis hconsum- ers) . This gap is lowest among fishConnoisseurs. Lower confidence in personal qualityevaluation ability w a s e xpected to resul t in a h igherw illingness to em brace external information ab outquality, e.g . stronger interest in price (Obermiller &W heatly, 1 985; Zeithaml, 1988) or in a quality label (cfr.G runert et a l., 2004). Our study supports this asso-ciation. It also shows that uncertainty aboutevaluating quality assoc iates w ith a stro nger interest incredence qualities and quality labels, though onlyin th e c as e w her e involvem ent with quality issufficiently high, namely for the Un certain fishco nsum ers but not for th e Uninvolved. Grunert (1997)argued that – in a low involveme ntsituation– consumers m ay ne ver form quality expectations butasso- ciate certain p roduct attributes w ith their dailypurchase sand use th ese to en sure a on e-dimensional, non-specific sat- isfaction with th e purchase a fter consumption. This is clearly the case for the uninvolved fishconsum ers in our study.

This s tudy has demonstrated the usefulness of investi-gating quality e valuation as a two-dim ensiona lconstructthat associateswith behaviour, beliefs andinformation processing re lated to fish . The mainlim itatio n of th e study pertainsto its use of non-probab ility sa m pling and its nar- row geographic focus,i.e. Belgium only, which ranks am ong the lower fishconsu m ption cou ntries in Europe. As a result,genera lisations to the broader national or pan-Eu ropean pop ulation s are specu lative, and it is recom -mendedto va lidate the qu ality ev alu ation dim ensions,th e discovered fish con sum erseg ments and their specificbeh av - iou rsand inte rests th rough cros s-n ationa l, largeran d rep - resentative consum er sam ples. Fu rth ermore,th e issu e of fis h qu alitylab elling and co nsu m erint eres tin fish inform a- tion and related credence attr ibutesdeserves particular attention in fu ture fish consu m erresearch.

Acknowledgements

This work was partly performed with in theIn tegrated Resea rch Project SEAFOODplus, ContractNo. FOOD- CT-2004-506359. Partial financing of th ework by th e European Union is gratefullyacknowledged.

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