Abstract
The increasing number of marketable fish being supplied from aquaculture is a response to the increasing demand for healthy food and is filling the gap left by depleting natural fish stocks. Little is known about the awareness and perception of the consumer in terms of farmed fish versus fish from capture fisheries. The consumer's subjective point of view is of overriding importance for the production system and product acceptance as well as for future market success. In this paper consumer perception in Belgium is explored and compared against scientific evidence of farmed versus wild fish. Primary data were collected through a consumer survey (April 2003) and focus group discussions (May 2004) with Belgian consumers. The majority of the consumer sample reported no perceived differences between farmed versus wild fish. However, mean perception scores were slightly in favour of wild fish on the attributes taste, health and nutritious value, in particular among consumers aged 55 years and older. The availability of farmed fish was perceived to be better than that of wild fish, while the consumer's perception of safety did not differ between farmed and wild fish. The focus group discussions indicated that consumers’ opinions and beliefs about farmed fish are mainly based on emotion and image transfer from intensive terrestrial livestock production rather than on awareness and factual knowledge of aquaculture.
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Notes
The small sample size and non-representativeness of the sample are inherent characteristics of focus group discussions. Participants are typically referred to as “prime witnesses”, or people who are particularly interesting as respondents because of their specific socio-demographic, attitudinal or behavioural profile, which usually act as recruitment criteria. The fact that focus group samples are not representative does not hamper its usefulness for the stated purpose, which is to explore and understand consumer knowledge and belief formation. Insights obtained from focus group discussions should not be extrapolated or interpreted as being valid for the overall population.
Despite being significant at P < 0.05, the correlation coefficients (r) range between 0.1 and 0.2 indicating that the relationships between the variables are very weak, with percentages of variation (r²) shared by two variables being lower than 3% in each case.
Abbreviations
- ω-3 PUFA:
-
ω-3 Polyunsaturated fatty acids
- EPA:
-
Eicosapentaenoic acid
- DHA:
-
Docosahexaenoic acid
- PCBs:
-
Polychlorinated biphenyls
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Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Belgian Science Policy through the SPSD II project CP/02/56 and the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT-Vlaanderen). The consumer perception part of the work was partially performed within the Integrated Research Project SEAFOODplus, contract No. FOOD-CT-2004-506359. The partial financing of the work by the European Union is gratefully acknowledged.
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Verbeke, W., Sioen, I., Brunsø, K. et al. Consumer perception versus scientific evidence of farmed and wild fish: exploratory insights from Belgium. Aquacult Int 15, 121–136 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10499-007-9072-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10499-007-9072-7