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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