Editor’s note: SeafoodSource Editor Steven Hedlund is in San Diego this week reporting from the World Aquaculture Society’s Aquaculture 2010 conference.
Consumers are increasingly conscious of third-party certified seafood products, said Cathy Roheim, a professor in the University of Rhode Island’s department of environmental and natural resource economics, at the World Aquaculture Society’s Aquaculture 2010 conference in San Diego on Thursday.
“What is it that’s driving demand for certified seafood? What is motivating the market for eco-labeled seafood? Is it consumer-driven or is it corporate social responsibility?” asked Roheim, who’s also director of URI’s Sustainable Seafood Initiative.
Roheim cited a 2003 Seafood Choices Alliance survey asking about 1,000 consumers what they look for when buying seafood. Nearly half of respondents deemed freshness and smell “very important,” while 41 percent considered food safety “very important.” However, only one-third of respondents deemed harm to fish stocks as “very important,” and just 30 percent considered harm to the environment as “very important.” Price, taste and texture, and health and nutrition were also on the list.
“But, in 2003, this is probably a lot different than what the scenario might have been in 1985, before a lot of the seafood-education campaigns were created,” said Roheim. “A lot of consumers aren’t going to retail stores banging on the doors saying, ‘We demand sustainable seafood.’ That’s probably not quite the case yet. But it’s probably more prevalent than it used to be.
“So if consumers aren’t necessarily driving demand for sustainable seafood, then corporate social responsibility, as Peter Redmond talked about [in his keynote address on Tuesday], is,” explained Roheim.
Roheim cited a 2009 survey conducted by her and her colleagues asking U.S. corporations about sustainable seafood. One-third of respondents were retailers, 37 percent were distributors and 29 percent were foodservice operators. Of the 21 firms that responded, eight bought less than USD 50 million worth of seafood annually, eight bought USD 50 million to USD 250 million and five bought more than USD 250 million.
They were asked to gauge the level of risk associated with the failure to develop and implement a sustainable seafood purchasing policy. Nearly 30 percent said “risky,” while more than 40 percent said “some risk” and no one said “no risk.”
Additionally, 81 percent of respondents said they will invest more in sustainable seafood initiatives in the next five years; 71 percent believe that the cost of sourcing sustainable seafood will never decline; 75 percent think that revenues from sourcing sustainable seafood will increase in the future; and 65 percent said profits to their seafood division will increase in the future as a result of their sustainable-seafood purchasing policies.
“They’re eating some of the costs [for sustainable seafood initiatives], and they’re not passing those costs along to their customers necessarily,” said Roheim. “But they certainly feel like in the future [when the economy improves] that they’ll be able to pass some of those costs along to consumers.”
