Perception shifts in seafood consumption in the United States

ABSTRACT

Perceptions about specific seafood attributes play an essential role in American consumers' choices of a seafood entrée served in casual and fine dining restaurants. However, the trends and determinants of consumer perceptions are underexplored. This research analyzes how consumers perceive specific attributes of a seafood entrée and examines the effect of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics on their perceptions. Factor analysis and multivariate Tobit models were employed to analyze data collected online via Qualtrics' consumer panels in the U.S. The results indicate that the proportion of participants who deem farm-raised and sustainability-certified fish safer to eat, better tasting, higher quality, more fairly traded, and more environmentally friendly is the highest. However, the difference in perceptions of domestic and imported fish is ambiguous. The perceptions of nutritional value for human consumption are near neutral among these seafood attributes. The main determinants of these perceptions are the frequency they eat fish, whether having children in a household, gender, ethnicity, and the age of consumers. These perceptions and determinants are relatively consistent before and during Covid-19. This study contributes to the literature on seafood perceptions at casual and fine dining restaurants and provides the most recent trend on American seafood perceptions and their determinants. These results are beneficial to seafood producers, distributors, and policymakers for providing more appropriate regulations related to future seafood supply in the U.S.