A responsible proposal for Italian seafood consumers’

Abstract

Sustainable seafood consumption is a very intricate process, where different factors in diverse ways can influence the consumer"s behaviour. One of them is the knowledge on aspects related to seafood consumption and resource exploitation. Moreover, the sustainable criteria aren"t always clear and opportunely updated for consumers, both under the form of eco-labels and seafood guides. In this context, the aim of the paper was to easily provide buying suggestions based on scientific sustainable criteria, guiding consumers toward to responsible seafood consumption. Data collected during the framework of the study on consumers" perception for eco-labeled Mediterranean anchovy, were adopted as case-study for the most common species sold in fish shop. Each species of the list of seafood preferred by consumers was synoptically related to 4 items, regarding the healthy status of the marine resource, the legal landing size, as well as biological aspects related to reproductive features. The table obtained was summarized and simplified for consumer use, realizing a friendly picture with figure/graphic, where possible. The implementation of the considered sustainable criteria provides useful suggestion orienting consumer toward to responsible seafood consumption, although a compromise among social, economic and environmental sustainability, consumer"s requests and his awareness needs to be improved.

Drivers of fish choice: an exploratory analysis in Mediterranean countries

“…This is because respondents learnt the sensory traits and the nutritional benefits belonging to each species (Lawley et al 2012;Pohar 2011;Verbeke et al 2007). Regarding the origin, academic literature has extensively dealt with the key role of this trait in consumer choices of fish (Cantillo Page 18 of 25 Saidi et al Agricultural andFood Economics (2022) 10:29 et al 2020;Giosue et al 2018;Maesano et al 2020;Masi et al 2022;Murray et al 2017;Paredes et al 2020;Risius et al 2017;Witkin et al 2015) as consumers prefer to consume local fish products. This can be due to the natural tendency to ethnocentrism in food preferences that can be augmented by concern in food safety (Delong et al 2016) and is mediated also by the evaluation assigned to the particular country, being products from emerging economies, tendentially perceived riskier (Wang et al 2018).…”

Consumers’ Perception and Willingness to Pay for Eco-Labeled Seafood in Italian Hypermarkets

“…In fact, the results suggest that the intrinsic motivation of consumers may be associated with aspects primarily related to BFG rather than to LIH, emphasizing that health and food safety concerns are the principal drivers in the purchasing process [23]. Moreover, consumers' attention to the condition of the product (fresh/frozen) and visual aspects, together with the exploitation level of a given species and the harvesting process (wild vs. farmed), have been deemed useful to determine consumer responsiveness to an eco-labeled seafood product [16,23,34].…”

The assessment of the attitude of Sicilian consumers towards wild and farmed seafood products – a sample survey

“…In this study, the presence of an eco-label was not indicated by any respondent as the principal factor when purchasing the seafood products. The eco-label, is a certification very important for the consumers, in fact, can enclose different attributes based on the sustainability (social, economic and environmental) of the fishery, and it is able to make the product easily recognisable (Giosu e et al, 2018).…”

“…In this context, knowledge of consumer attitudes is the first step to be able to educate him on the sustainable consumption of fish and seafood products. Indeed, the sustainable consumption of fish is a very complex process, in which several factors (intentions, attitudes, social norms, trust, knowledge, habits, situational and socioeconomic conditions) and their interactions can influence consumer behaviour (Richter and Kl€ ockner, 2017;Giosu e et al, 2018). An environmentally friendly approach to seafood consumption is becoming an important factor for the sustainable management of fishery resources (Nguyen et al, 2010;Maesano et al, 2019;Vitale et al, 2020).…”