A survey of seafood consumers conducted by the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA), which operates the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification, suggests there is demand for more certified seafood – and a willingness to pay for it – in China.
According to the survey, which went out to over 3,300 consumers across China this summer, 40 percent of Chinese consumers want at least 10 percent of China’s aquaculture output to be certified. Additionally, over 90 percent of respondents were willing to pay a 1 percent premium for certified products, and over 15 percent would pay a premium of 10 percent or greater.
The results come as only about 500,000 metric tons (MT) of China’s aquaculture output, which totaled 60.8 million MT in 2024, is certified by BAP, leading GSA to conclude that its survey showcases “huge market potential” for BAP to make further inroads in the country.
To do so effectively, the survey also asked about seafood consumer preferences.
For instance, the survey found that seafood marketing efforts would most likely work best on higher-income and more educated segments of the Chinese population who increasingly purchase seafood to cook at home.
The results found that 64.3 percent of all consumers surveyed eat seafood at least once per week, but this figure rises to 78.5 percent for those earning more than CNY 12,000 (USD 1,680, EUR 1,440) per month. Similarly, while CNY 142 (USD 19.90, EUR 17.06) is the average per month consumers spend on seafood, according to the survey, this figure rises to CNY 168 (USD 23.40, EUR 20.10) for those earning more than CNY 12,000 per year.
It also found that seafood consumption per consumer, which averaged 24.3 kilograms annually, varied depending on location, averaging 27.3 kilograms in urban areas and 18.4 kilograms in rural areas.
Though this information may suggest that it is best to target urban consumers, it also highlights opportunities to grow consumption in rural areas, even including those off the coast.
Echoing the potential of that opportunity, a report released by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, a Canadian government agency tasked with promoting food exports, late last year said that improved logistics and e-commerce capabilities will make it easier to achieve market penetration in China’s smaller cities and rural areas.
“Chinese consumers living in third-tier (and below) cities and rural areas are expected to drive the next wave of consumption. High-end imported seafood products will find new opportunities for growth in China,” the report said. “[E-commerce brings] an affordable middle-class lifestyle to rural residents through live streaming and aquatic counters, while the ever-improving cold chain logistics and community retail models such as fresh group buying and front-warehousing-to-home are making imported fish and seafood products fresher and more affordable.”
Still, despite the rise of e-commerce in the country, the GSA survey found that live seafood – typically purchased from tanks at wet markets – remains the first choice of where consumers prefer to buy their seafood, with 72.8 percent of those surveyed saying that’s their preference. Nevertheless, a majority (54 percent) said they also prefer pre-processed fresh seafood, which suggests opportunities for vendors of pre-prepared seafood that’s not frozen.
Regarding other factors driving the consumption choices of Chinese consumers, freshness, food safety, and environmental sustainability were the top three factors respondents cited as important to their purchasing decisions, with price in eighth place and origin ranking as the 12th most important factor.
The growing opportunities to grow sales of certified seafood are being increasingly noticed by companies supplying the Chinese market, according to BAP.
The certification scheme confirmed earlier this year that there has been a surge in BAP applications from seafood firms supplying China’s domestic market.
New applicants targeting the Chinese domestic market accounted for just 3 percent of new applications in the country as recently as five years ago, but that figure stands at 50 percent as of July, according to Iris Xin Wang, who is the GSA’s director of market development for China.
“We’re always exploring better ways to share information about responsible seafood practices in a way that resonates with Chinese culture,” she said. “We do our best to support BAP-certified facilities and BAP endorsers by conducting marketing campaigns … and we have successfully done live-streaming promotions, an in-store children-facing course, and social media campaigns.”
