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

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of the paper was to know and evaluate consumption, preferences and the knowledge of labelling legislation about wild and farmed seafood products.Design/methodology/approachA sample survey on Sicilian families was conducted through a direct interviews between October 2015 and October 2016 to study the attitudes of Sicilian consumers towards wild and farmed fish and seafood products. A stratified two-stage sampling design was chosen with variable probability of inclusion of the units of first stage and 1,700 subjects were interviewed.FindingsThe results obtained showed that the 69.4% of respondent ate fresh fish at least once a week and the 86% of respondents consumed aquaculture products at least once a month. Also, the 77.3% of respondents did not know the current legislation on the labelling. Multiple correspondence analysis allowed to identified three profiles of Sicilian families and binary logit model was used to examine the factors that influenced different frequency of fresh fish consumption in general and farmed seafood products in particular.Research limitations/implicationsExtending the research throughout the Italian territory would have allowed further comparisons at the national level.Practical implicationsThe research provides useful information on Sicilian consumers that could be used by policymakers and by marketing communications company.Social implicationsThis research, on a restricted group of European consumers (Sicilian), characterised by living in an island, reinforce the knowledge regarding seafood consumers.Originality/valueThis study used a probabilistic sampling design and a face-to-face questionnaire which produce results more robust in compare to surveys used more frequently such as non-probabilistic sampling design.

Are Italian consumers of canned tuna fish sensitive to environmentally sustainable product attributes?

“…at monthly level), while the “Yes” category referred to a high frequency of tuna consumption (i.e. at weekly level) (Allegro et al. , 2021; Bozzo et al.…”

“…, 2017). Starting from the complete model (all the potential explanatory variables included in the model comprehensive of preferences and opinions on seafood sustainability, as well as socio-demographic ones), a mixed “backward” and “forward” stepwise selection strategy was adopted (Allegro et al. , 2021; Palmieri and Perito, 2020).…”

“…, 2015). The same demographic variables were considered in studies dealing with Italian consumers (Allegro et al. , 2021; Samoggia and Castellini, 2018), and were used in combination with behavioural, or psychographic variables in segmentation-based research to identify potential consumers for sustainable products (Almeida et al.…”

“…, 2014). Allegro et al. (2021) examined the factors that influence different frequencies of seafood products consumption among Sicilian consumers; although tuna fish was among the species respondents consumed the most, the analysis of the driving factors was not mentioned at single species level.…”

“…Studies on sustainable seafood consumption often investigated the relevance of sociodemographic variables (Carlucci et al, 2015;Giacomarra et al, 2021), such as age, education, the presence of children and place of residence (Almeida et al, 2015). The same demographic variables were considered in studies dealing with Italian consumers (Allegro et al, 2021;Samoggia and Castellini, 2018), and were used in combination with behavioural, or psychographic variables in segmentation-based research to identify potential consumers for sustainable products (Almeida et al, 2015;Altintzoglou and Heide, 2016;Pulcini et al, 2020;Sacchettini et al, 2021).…”