Seafish and Defra are ramping up a major marketing campaign to boost consumption of local seafood in the United Kingdom.
The next phase of “Sea For Yourself” went live on 4 May with an advertising campaign across Facebook and Instagram. Next, chefs and local food heroes will be featured in podcasts and radio broadcasts throughout May and June.
“While we’ve been working with Defra on Sea For Yourself for a while, the situation we’re currently facing places an even greater importance on the next phase of campaign activity. We’re aiming to encourage more consumers to support the seafood industry and enjoy delicious locally caught fish and shellfish in a period where usual routes to market have been significantly disrupted,” Seafish Head of Marketing Greg Smith said.
Seafish noted a 60 percent increase in seafood retail sales volume in the week ending 21 March, but warned the “full closure of dining out options means the popular foodservice channels for seafood have temporarily disappeared.”
“I’d strongly encourage seafood businesses to join us on the campaign trail now so they can benefit from the ongoing, nationwide activity,” Smith added.
As part of the Sea For Yourself campaign, consumers are being urged to visit the Sea For Yourself campaign hub on the Fish is the Dish website, with tips and recipes to show consumers how they can cook these species, as well as to information on online sales to help them find out where to buy local fish and shellfish.
Morrisons is already using the Sea For Yourself logo on its boxes containing wild-caught fish landed in U.K. waters.
“Customers have told us they like our new U.K.-caught wild fish boxes – and sales have surpassed our expectations. With our focus on U.K. fish – and the reopening of our fish counters with knock-out prices – we want to encourage our customers to buy home-caught seafood,” Morrisons Senior Seafood Buyer Sean Gill said.
Seafood businesses can share posts on social media to help amplify its key messages and reach even more consumers.
“To make this as easy as possible for businesses, Seafish has made a range of campaign assets available for business to download for free from its online asset bank," Seafish said.
“We know there’s a lot of work ahead to positively shift consumer attitudes and behavior, but the Sea For Yourself marketing campaign has a nice fit with our longer term marketing efforts,” Smith said. “We want people to fall back in love with seafood so we’re working with industry through our newly formed Love Seafood Group to develop our new consumer brand platform. It will be ready for launch later this year, with always-on campaigns to change the attitudes, perception and culture towards including seafood in our diet.”
Image courtesy of Seafish
