Determinants of fishery and aquaculture products consumption at home in the EU28

The European Union (EU) is the world's largest market for fishery and aquaculture products (FAPs) in nominal terms. Given the importance of these products, EU authorities and policy-makers are continuously monitoring consumer preferences and attitudes, analysing whether or not the implementation of EU policies and regulations improves the market conditions. For example, the Eurobarometer (European Union, 2018a) surveyed 27,732 EU residents including a specific module to analyse the fishery and aquaculture EU market. In this study, the dataset is used to estimate Ordered Probit models using effects coding and their marginal effects to identify the main determinants of the frequency of FAPs at-home consumption. Results indicate that the highest probability to consume more frequently FAPs is related to considering that one of the main reasons for buying or eating fishery and aquaculture products is because they are healthy, while the highest probability to consume less frequently FAPs is related to consumers who do not understand at all the information accompanying the products. Similarly, other important reasons for consuming FAPs more frequently are their good taste and low relative price. Also, results indicate a higher frequency of consumption of FAPs for those consumers who are over 55 years of age, are wealthy, have a wild product preference, live in a household of 3 persons or more and are very satisfied with their lives. To our best knowledge, there is not a similar approach in the current literature that considers such an extensive sample which is representative of all the countries that conform the EU28. Results provide valuable information especially for producers and authorities in terms of marketing and policy analysis.

Automated summary

The European Union is the largest market for fishery and aquaculture products in the world. A study on consumer preferences in the EU market found that health benefits and taste are the main reasons for consuming these products more frequently, while lack of understanding of product information leads to less frequent consumption. Other factors influencing consumption frequency of FAPs include price, age, wealth, preferences, etc.