Consumer preferences for seafood sustainability attributes: A comparative study of 12 markets

Abstract

Seafood consumers are increasingly becoming aware of products with sustainability attributes, such as low greenhouse gas emissions, animal health/welfare, and work conditions in the fishery/aquaculture sector. However, it is unclear how consumers rank these attributes in their purchase decisions compared to conventional attributes such as price, product appearance, food safety, and taste. There is also limited information available about how consumers' preferences vary across countries. This study aimed to examine consumer preferences for key sustainable and conventional seafood attributes across 12 markets. The best-worst scaling method was applied to an online survey design (N = 12,222), which was conducted between November 2023 to February 2024 in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, USA, and Vietnam. The results suggest that, for all markets, food safety and taste were ranked as the most important attributes, followed by sustainability attributes such as seafood with healthy fish populations, compliance with regulations, and limited pollution. Social/ethical seafood attributes such as work conditions, animal health/welfare, and community engagement ranked among the least important across all markets. A latent class analysis identified four consumer segments across the 12 markets in relation to preferences for seafood attributes: the ‘sustainability-interested’, ‘indecisive’, ‘origin-focused’, and ‘traditional’ consumers. The findings from this study can help seafood suppliers better understand the current market for sustainability seafood attributes as a foundation for targeted promotion of their seafood products to specific consumer groups and markets.