The fish are biting, but are customers?<\/p>\n
Alaska\u2019s seafood marketers have spent millions over the past few years to promote the idea that Alaska seafood is sustainable: that it isn\u2019t overharvested and that fishing for salmon doesn\u2019t harm the environment.<\/p>\n
A new study published last month in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management found that message may not matter \u2014 or at least, it may not matter as much as simpler things like the smell, look and taste of the seafood in the grocery store.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were actually kind of shocked that would come out below things like price, appearance and other factors,\u201d said Grant Murray, the lead author of the study.<\/p>\n
Murray, now at Duke University, worked with two other researchers at the Institute for Coastal Research at Vancouver Island University and gauged the reactions of shoppers in three rural British Columbia grocery stores.<\/p>\n
What they found was that shoppers rated the taste, smell and appearance of their seafood as their No. 1 priority, followed by price and the health benefits of the seafood.<\/p>\n
Whether the seafood was farmed or wild and whether it came from a sustainable source or not \u2014 that didn\u2019t matter nearly as much.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere hadn\u2019t been a lot of studies that had compared all of those things at the same time,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth noting that this new study is fairly limited: It only looked at grocery store shoppers in non-urban British Columbia.<\/p>\n
The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute has conducted (and has access to) other, more detailed surveys, but those are proprietary and kept confidential, ASMI spokesman Jeremy Woodrow said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
That said, ASMI\u2019s information matches what the Canadian study found \u2014 at least to a point.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuality is what\u2019s going to bring the person back to your product. I think that\u2019s true whether you\u2019re talking about seafood or not,\u201d Woodrow said.<\/p>\n
He added that according to ASMI\u2019s experience and research, international seafood buyers care a lot more than American and Canadian consumers about sustainability and whether their seafood is properly certified.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Europe, the retailers were doing it because their consumers were demanding it. They wouldn\u2019t buy seafood unless it was certified,\u201d Woodrow said.<\/p>\n
But certification isn\u2019t the whole thing for Alaska seafood. \u201cThe look, smell of your seafood is the No. 1 purchasing decision no matter what you\u2019re buying,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As of Tuesday, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported that fishermen have caught 134.7 million salmon of all kinds. In the next few weeks, those fish will head to markets around the world and compete for space on store shelves and in the shopping baskets of consumers.<\/p>\n
According to ASMI\u2019s data, and the new Canadian study, actions being taken now, by individual fishermen and fishing boats, will determine in a big way what happens on those shelves.<\/p>\n
If fishermen treat fish with care \u2014 Woodrow pointed out the trend toward refrigerated-seawater storage in most Bristol Bay fishing boats \u2014 they\u2019ll get higher prices from processors who know that quality matters in the end result.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want your fish to smell like the ocean and look fresh,\u201d Woodrow said.<\/p>\n
ASMI is continuing its drive to convince Americans that sustainability matters \u2014 it\u2019s one of the distinctive features of Alaska salmon against their farmed competitors \u2014 but for now, hooking consumers starts on deck.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com or call 523-2258.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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The fish are biting, but are customers? Alaska\u2019s seafood marketers have spent millions over the past few years to promote the idea that Alaska seafood is sustainable: that it isn\u2019t overharvested and that fishing for salmon doesn\u2019t harm the environment. A new study published last month in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management found that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[104],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-fishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23807"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}