The results of a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. grocery shoppers found that typical seafood buyers in the U.S. are not who many in the industry believe them to be.
The average seafood buyer in the U.S. more likely to be male, well-educated, older, and living alone or without kids, according to Food Marketing Institute Vice President of Fresh Foods Rick Stein, who presented the results of the first-ever FMI Power of Seafood survey at the 2019 Global Seafood Market Conference in Coronado, California, U.S.A. on 17 January.
According to the survey, 36 percent of seafood consumers are Baby Boomers, versus 28 percent of non-seafood eaters. Contrarily, 27 percent of millennials eat seafood once a month or more, while 35 percent of that younger age demographic eat seafood less than once a month to never. Fifty percent of seafood consumers have college degrees, while 35 percent of the non-seafood eaters in the survey were college graduates. Seafood buyers are more likely to live alone (24 percent seafood consumers versus 19 percent non-seafood consumers) or have no children (65 percent of seafood consumers versus 59 percent of non-seafood consumers).
On average, seafood buyers have higher household incomes – 16 percent earn more than USD 100,000 (EUR 88,000) annually, with that figure rising to 20 percent of frequent buyers, while eight percent of non-seafood eaters have incomes above that figure. They also shop more frequently, and at more locations, with 69 percent of seafood buyers and 76 percent of frequent seafood buyers shopping twice or more per week, versus 62 percent of non-seafood buyers.
Seafood buyers are more likely to be driven in their purchases by concerns over nutrition and health, Stein said. Of seafood buyers, 87 percent said they put at least some effort into selecting healthy food options, versus 77 percent of non-seafood eaters, with 39 percent of seafood eaters saying they put “a lot” of effort in to find nutritious food versus 28 percent of non-seafood eaters.
And seafood shoppers are willing to travel to multiple locations to find products they like, the survey found. Thirty-one percent of seafood consumers buy their seafood at a separate location from their primary grocery store, and just two-thirds of all seafood shoppers buy all of their seafood from one outlet, with many traveling to another supermarket (28 percent), a supercenter (23 percent), a seafood specialty store (22 percent), a club store (17 percent), or a farmer’s market (17 percent) to buy some of their seafood.
However, while many seafood shoppers are comfortable shopping for groceries online, with 46 percent of frequent seafood buyers making a grocery purchase online in the previous month before they were surveyed, only four percent said they occasionally purchased seafood from an online merchant. In comparison, Stein said 19 percent of meat buyers purchase meat online occasionally.
“Even though not buying seafood online, they are big online customers,” Stein said, adding that he believed this represented a future opportunity for seafood sellers who can crack the code and get frequent buyers to purchase more of their seafood online.
Seafood-buyers surveyed by FMI listed product quality as the most important factor in how they chose what seafood to buy, with 58 percent of shoppers selecting that option out of the 10 they were presented with. Quality was followed by “taste or flavor” and “total price" (each garnered a 42 percent response rate), then “type or species” and “price per pound" (both received a 35 percent response rate). “Product appearance” (24 percent), “nutritional benefits” (20 percent), “knowledge/how to prepare” (17 percent), “sustainability” (15 percent), and “preparation time/ease” (12 percent) followed. In contrast, in FMI’s study of meat shoppers, price per pound was found to be the most important factor for shoppers.
