Project number: 2008-779
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $117,802.75
Principal Investigator: Nick Danenberg
Organisation: University of Adelaide
Project start/end date: 30 Apr 2009 - 30 Apr 2011
Contact:
FRDC

Need

It has been acknowledged that the seafood industry is facing increased threats. Thus, the industry needs to attract more people to eat more seafood and on a more regular basis. To do this requires that the industry completely understand and anticipate what consumers value and demand, so that it can take advantage of changing consumer dietary preferences. Therefore, the industry will be better able to add value to seafood products to fulfil this demand, which will ultimately improve the industry’s profitability.

Therefore, there is a need for the seafood industry as a whole to:

• track seafood consumption—over time; more regularly; with complete geographical coverage of all major Australian cities; with greater coverage of all demographic groups; and using a panel of participants to measure real changes in their consumption and what caused such changes;
• understand consumers’ preferences and purchase patterns (and the changes over time), including light- and non-seafood buyers;
• focus on what consumers do, and the choices that they make, rather than just on what they say they will do;
• anticipate and predict chances of success for new products, including messages to do with concepts such as eco-labelling, health claims, sustainability, animal welfare, food miles, quality rating system, freshness index and so on. Ideally, this is done early in the R&D process, before too much money and resources have been spent, or where there is a risk of visible (and damaging) market failure;
• assess the effectiveness of promotional activities;
• build on the previous work of the FRDC in testing and quantifying various recommendations of these reports, especially those related to adding value to products (e.g., deboning fillets and ready-to-heat options);
• better estimate the likely market acceptance (e.g., willingness to pay, market share and differential segment response) of value added innovations.

Objectives

1. Measure seafood consumption levels and patterns including consumers' knowledge and preferences for seafood (Benchmark and track changes over time)
2. Measure consumer acceptance (in terms of consumers’ willingness to pay, the expected market share, segmentation, importance of product features) and forecast the demand for a range of innovative seafood products, packaging, and services
3. Determine the relative impact of different advertising, promotional messages (e.g., health benefits, sustainability and other environmental claims, etc), education programs and the extent those messages would be valued by the consumers

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