In general motive and value fulfilment are major antecedents for consumer food

decision making as well as being very important for consumers' seafood

choices. Four general motives or values for food and seafood choices have

earlier been distinguished; they are health, taste, convenience and process-

related characteristics (Brunsù and Grunert, 2007), and the achievement of

desired consequences, such as the expected health benefits achieved by eating

specific foods, is an important driver for consumers' food and seafood choices.

Earlier studies have revealed that many consumers consider fish and seafood

as healthy, nutritious and tasty, and, as mentioned, health and taste are major

drivers motivating consumers' food choices. Nonetheless, a number of European

countries have experienced a decline in the overall consumption of fish. It has

furthermore been established that young consumers especially consume less

seafood compared to older generations, and that there are major differences in

consumption levels across Europe. In order to improve the understanding of

consumer attitudes, preferences and seafood choices, a number of new studies

have been initiated, and the chapters in this section will provide new scientific

insights related to consumers' seafood and fish choices in several respects.

Chapter 3 `Consumer attitudes and seafood consumption in Europe' presents

a consumer-oriented approach for explaining the variations in consumption

levels across countries applying methodologies leading to comparable and valid

results. New findings related to consumer attitudes and seafood consumption in

Europe, e.g. motives and barriers to seafood consumption, are presented along

with results on consumption patterns and how to understand differences in con-

sumption levels based on attitudes and preferences. Furthermore, the particular

2

Introduction to Part I:consumers and seafoodK. Brunsù, University of Aarhus, Denmark

issue of convenience will be investigated, since seafood consumption to some

degree seems to depend on the perception of seafood convenience as well as on

how consumers perceive barriers in relation to the purchase and preparation of

seafood.

Chapter 4 `Improved eating quality of seafood: the link between sensory

characteristics, consumer liking and attitudes' especially focuses on the import-

ant aspect of taste as perceived by consumers in various European countries. No

earlier studies on a European level have managed to use real seafood samples in

a cross-cultural setting to investigate the relationship between quality and taste

evaluations as performed by experts and the experienced eating quality by

consumers; new interesting findings in this respect will be presented and

discussed. Furthermore, a sensory quality model for `translating' consumers'

perception of eating quality to sensory characteristics perceived by key decision

makers in the total seafood production chain will be introduced and discussed in

terms of points of quality decision making, methods and measures used in the

chain.

Chapter 5 `Evaluating consumer information needs in the purchase of seafood

products' focuses on consumers' use of and trust in information sources related

to seafood, and here a number of important aspects of consumers' seafood

choices are discussed. Very few studies have been made regarding the impact of

health, safety and ethical information on consumer decision making in the case

of seafood products. Consumer interest in different information cues, labelling

and traceability is an important topic, since often consumer decision making and

utility maximisation are disturbed by imperfect information or because con-

sumers lack knowledge about how to use information cues. Different aspects

will be discussed, especially how consumers perceive traceability and ethical

issues related to seafood consumption and production (a production-related

characteristic) will be treated, as well as how consumers differ in their use and

trust in information across countries.

Chapter 6 `Consumer evaluation of tailor-made seafood products' specific-

ally deals with how to contribute to a deeper understanding of consumers'

preferences and willingness to buy tailor-made seafood products. The chapter

establishes and discusses a conceptual, theoretical and methodological platform

for designing and measuring consumer evaluation and preferential behaviour

related to new and tailor-made seafood products. Among other things the

chapter discusses how different testing conditions/contexts influence the

evaluation and motivation to buy products and the effect of time pressure.

Also real tailor-made seafood products targeted at specific consumer segments

are tested both in-home and out of home, and new insights into how consumers

balance various health benefits, convenience benefits and taste benefits are

presented and discussed.

The chapters in the present part of the book describes the research confined to

the projects dealing with consumer studies within SEAFOODplus, but as the

research has been highly integrated, it will be evident in the individual chapters

how research has been performed in concert with studies presented in the other

14 Improving seafood products for the consumer

parts of the book as well. The closest contact has been to project issues reported

in Part IV of the book.

2.1 References

BRUNSé, K. and GRUNERT, K. G. (2007). Consumer attitude measures and food product

development. In H. MacFie (Ed.), Consumer-led food product development, pp.

197±222. Cambridge: Woodhead Publishing Ltd.

Introduction to Part I: consumers and seafood 15