motives, barriers and quality evaluation in fish consumption

Motives, barriers and qualityevaluation in fish consumption

situationsExploring and comparing heavy and light users

in Spain and Belgium

Karen BrunsøMAPP Centre, Department of Marketing and Statistics,

Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus, Denmark

Wim VerbekeGhent University, Department of Agricultural Economics, Gent, Belgium

Svein Ottar OlsenNorwegian College of Fishery Science, Nofima and University of Tromsø,

Tromsø, Norway, and

Lisbeth Fruensgaard JeppesenMAPP Centre, Department of Marketing and Statistics,

Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus, Denmark

AbstractPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate motives and barriers for eating fish amonglight users and heavy users, to discuss consumer evaluation of fish quality, and to explore theexistence of cross-cultural fish consumer segments.

Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative data were collected through six focus groupdiscussions, three in Spain and three in Belgium. In each country, one group consisted of heavyusers while two groups included light users.

Findings – The same attitudinal motives and barriers for fish consumption can be found in bothcountries and across user groups, even though fish consumption levels differ considerably. The mainmotives for eating fish are health and taste, while the main barriers are price perception, smell whencooking fish, and that fish does not deliver the same level of satiety as compared to meat. Big differencesare found between countries and user groups with respect to preparation skills and the use of qualitycues. Heavy users are very skilled in evaluating fish quality, especially those in Spain, while light users,especially those in Belgium, make seemingly irrational assumptions when evaluating the quality of fish.

Research limitations/implications – This study is based on qualitative focus group discussionsin two European countries only.

Originality/value – This study explores and compares motives, barriers and quality evaluationamong heavy and light fish consumers in two European countries. The paper yields valuable insightsfor further quantitative research into explaining variations in fish consumption, as well as for fishquality evaluation and fish market segmentation studies.

Keywords Consumer behaviour, Fish (food), Quality assessment, Spain, Belgium

Paper type Research paper

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm

This research was performed within the EU FP6 Integrated Project SEAFOODplus, Contract No.FOOD-CT-2004-506359. The financing of the work by the European Union is gratefullyacknowledged.

Motives, barriersand qualityevaluation

699

British Food JournalVol. 111 No. 7, 2009

pp. 699-716q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0007-070XDOI 10.1108/00070700910972387

IntroductionFactors influencing consumers’ evaluation and choice of food products can be dividedinto three broad categories (Shepherd and Sparks, 1994): the products (e.g. flavour,texture, and taste), the individual (e.g. personality, attitudes, values, perceptions) andthe environment (e.g. availability, situation, culture). The importance of thesecategories is likely to vary between consumers as well as products, making it crucial tounderstand which factors are important among specific segments for the evaluation offood as well as the drivers behind, e.g. the motives and barriers for usage of specificfood products.

This study investigates reasons for the huge variation in fish consumption that notonly exists across European countries but also within countries by examiningconsumers motives and barriers for fish consumption across consumer groups as wellas their ability to evaluate fish quality. We take point of departure in the theory ofplanned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), as well as in a theoretical framework about theformation of food quality expectations and purchasing motives (Grunert et al., 1996).Following these theories, we investigate qualitatively the reasons for fish consumption,and the quality indicators used in order to evaluate fish quality. This is done amongtwo consumer segments and from a cross-cultural perspective; Heavy and light usersof fish are considered in two European countries with significantly different levels offish consumption, Spain and Belgium. Spain has one of the highest averageconsumption levels of fish in Europe, while Belgium is among the countries in Europewith the lowest average consumption of fish (Brunsø, 2003).

The objectives of the study are thus:

(1) to identify and discuss motives and barriers for consuming fish among twoconsumer segments (heavy and light users of fish);

(2) to discuss the role of consumer evaluation of fish quality; and

(3) to explore from a cross-cultural perspective if segments can be identified in ameaningful way.

Below we start by outlining the main theoretical concepts on motivation, valuefulfilment and food quality evaluation, followed by a review of earlier findings onconsumption patterns and consumer perceptions of fish. Then we introduce our studyand its methodology, and present and discuss results from the study as well asimplications and limitations.

Theoretical background: motives, barriers and food quality evaluationWhen trying to understand and explain food consumption behaviour, general attitudemodels have proven to be very valuable and useful (Olsen, 2003). The Theory ofPlanned Behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) is such a model that has frequently beenapplied in explaining consumer choices. This theory postulates that purchase decisionsare primarily influenced by purchasing intentions, which in turn are shaped byconsumers’ (favourable or unfavourable) attitudes towards the behaviour, subjectivenorms (i.e. influences from a person’s social environment, as well as social and personalnorms), and perceived behavioural control (i.e. presence or absence of facilitatingconditions to perform the behaviour in question). The validity of such a TPBframework can be assessed through quantitative research, but in the case of qualitativeexploratory research (such as the one presented in this paper) the TPB framework is

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mainly relevant as a classification framework for motives and barriers to perform aspecific behaviour.

However, in recent years the general attitude approach has been extended to includea number of additional constructs beyond attitudes in order to improve the empiricalvalue and explanatory power of food choice models. One of the areas where new andimportant extensions have been proposed is to include consumers’ motivations – andtheir counterparts (barriers) – to improve the understanding of how and whenproduct-related attitudes and quality evaluation leads to behaviour, e.g. food choice(Olsen, 2001). It has been argued that motive or value fulfilment in many situations is amajor antecedent for decision making and food choices, e.g. the achievement of desiredconsequences such as a nice enjoyable meal or the expected health benefits achieved byeating some specific foods (Brunsø et al., 2004). Earlier studies have outlined a numberof determinants of food choice. Commonly acknowledged determinants includepersonal factors such as attitudes, habits, taste preference, health, convenience, ethicaland environmental concerns, as well as social environmental factors such as culturaldifferences, family preferences, and social norms (Shepherd, 1999; Shepherd, 2002;Honkanen et al., 2005; Nørgaard et al., 2007; Olsen, 2003; Olsen et al., 2007).

Among these determinants, in particular health, taste, process-related aspects andconvenience have all shown to be cross-culturally valid, to be of high importance incross-cultural studies and to be drivers of food choices despite national differences inEurope (Brunsø et al., 2002). Health is a dimension that has become very important tomany consumers, and consumers form preferences based on this dimension motivatedby expectations of both a longer life and one of higher quality of life (Roininen et al.,2001; Sijtsema et al., 2007). Taste of food has always been of high importance to mostconsumers – food is a matter of pleasure, and few people eat things they do not like thetaste of (Grunert et al., 2000; Verbeke, 2006). Thus taste and other hedonic aspects offood like appearance and smell is still an important issue for consumers. In recent yearsconsumers have attached increasing importance to the way food is produced, i.e. theproduction process has become a dimension of quality even when it has no immediatebearing on the taste or healthiness of the product (Vannoppen et al., 2002; Vermeir andVerbeke, 2008). Finally, convenience is becoming more and more important, and from aconsumer point of view convenience is much more than just ease of purchase or quickconsumption. Convenience means the saving of time, physical or mental energy at oneor more stages of the overall meal acquisition process: planning and shopping, storageand preparation of products, consumption, and the cleaning up and disposal ofleftovers (Gofton, 1995; Olsen et al., 2007; Beck, 2007).

Food quality evaluation has been described as a process where consumers formattitudes and food quality expectations based on the quality cues available in, e.g. ashopping situation. Cues are pieces of information such as colour, smell, brand or priceused to form quality expectations, and may be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic cues(Steenkamp, 1990). The intrinsic cues cover the physical characteristics of the foodproduct and are related to the product’s technical specifications, which also include itsphysiological characteristics, e.g. aspects which can be measured objectively. Theextrinsic quality cues represent all other characteristics of the products, such as brandname, price, distribution, outlet, packaging, etc. Of all the cues consumers are exposedto, only those which are perceived will have an influence on expected quality. The“quality” consumers infer from cues is usually not an aim in itself, but is desired


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because it helps satisfy abstract purchase motives or values, as the four introducedabove. Furthermore, even though these four motives may be important for consumerswhen forming attitudes and evaluating food quality, the busy lifestyles of today’sconsumers result in that choices of foods are made with many compromises andtrade-offs among desired alternatives as concluded by Holm and Kildevang (1996) intheir qualitative in-depth study of consumers’ considerations of food quality.

Research on consumer evaluation of fish qualityEarlier research of consumers’ evaluation of fish and fish quality has shown that manyconsumers are not able to use intrinsic cues for evaluating the quality of fresh fish (Juhland Poulsen, 2000). In their study two segments were distinguished: Among the“traditional fish eaters” both evaluation of odour/appearance and the label on the fishproduct affected quality expectations while the “fish lovers” only based their qualityexpectations on their evaluation of odour/appearance. Furthermore the highly involved“fish lovers” were able to determine the freshness of the fish from its odour andappearance, while the less involved “traditional fish eaters” not were able to decode theintrinsic cues in the same way, and thus needed extrinsic cues such as labelinformation (Juhl and Poulsen, 2000). The study concludes that many consumers arenot able to use intrinsic cues to evaluate quality, a fact also described and discussed byMarshall (1988). In a recent study in Belgium, fish consumers were segmented based ontheir evaluation of fish quality (Verbeke et al., 2007). The main dimensions in fishquality evaluation were personal importance attached to quality and self-confidence toassess fish quality. The segmentation analysis yielded four segments, of which twosegments, accounting for more than 60 per cent of the Belgian sample reportedrelatively low self-confidence in their ability to assess fish quality.

In relation to fresh versus frozen fish, several studies indicate that frozen fishproducts are perceived to be of worse quality by many consumers (Marshall, 1988;Nielsen et al., 1997; Olsen and Kristoffersen, 1999). The same has been found in theUSA, where a study exploring attitudes to fresh versus frozen fish found thatconsumers generally felt that buying fish was a risky venture that was even morepronounced when it came to frozen fish (Peavey et al., 1994). Frozen fish was associatedwith bad smell, mushy texture, bones, poor size selection and inferior taste.

Thus, the way consumers use intrinsic quality cues to infer expected quality can bequite intricate and seems sometimes irrational, especially among less experienced fishconsumers. Consumers use extrinsic cues, e.g. type of packaging, information on wildversus farmed fish and on quality control when available for evaluating productquality. This issue is referred to as inference-making in the quality evaluation process,and is particularly relevant in purchasing situations where consumers face qualityuncertainty and markets are characterised by asymmetric information (Grunert, 2005;Verbeke, 2005).

With regard to abstract motive fulfilment, earlier studies have shown thatconsumers seem to evaluate the four abstract motives introduced earlier in relation tofish: health benefits (here freshness seems to be a special issue), taste, convenience andprocess characteristics (Nielsen et al., 1997). Often revealed motive fulfilments arekeeping the family healthy, being adventurous and preparation of a meal for the wholefamily. But consumers also perceive barriers for buying fresh fish. Fish is perceived astime-consuming to buy and to prepare, and some consumers do not like the bones in

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fresh fish. In general more barriers were perceived by the less experienced consumersthan by the more experienced ones (Nielsen et al., 1997). The findings are highlyconsistent with results of other studies on fish with regard to the central attributes orevaluation criteria used by the consumers when buying or not buying fish (Marshall,1988; Olsen and Kristoffersen, 1999; Verbeke and Vackier, 2005). A study conducted inthe United Kingdom has revealed the same trend: that a boneless, filleted fish, withguaranteed freshness and more knowledge about cooking methods would be importantreasons for respondents to increase their purchase of different fish species (Baird et al.,1988). Many of the above mentioned aspects are related to the level of experience,which is a strong determinant of future consumption levels of fish (Myrland et al.,2000), together with consumer habits (Honkanen et al., 2005). The barriers identified inprevious studies link up mainly with perceived behavioural control factors asconceptualised in the TPB. Barriers concern inhibiting factors for performing aparticular behaviour, which is fish consumption in this particular case. Relevantbehavioural control factors are lack of personal knowledge and self-confidence aboutfish quality evaluation; as well as lack of fish preparation skills, which is associatedwith low familiarity and low experience with the product category (Verbeke andVackier, 2005). Motives or barriers relating to price and sensory liking or disliking,such as taste, smell and bones, are rather components of a consumer’s attitude towardsbuying and using fish.

In general there seems to be a number of quality aspects and motives, which recuracross Europe when consumers are asked to state what is important in relation to fishquality. Still there are many uncovered aspects. Little is known about the relationships,e.g. which intrinsic and extrinsic quality cues affect expected quality and motivefulfilment, and how meal preparation and know-how in relation to fish affectexperienced quality. More knowledge on these aspects will be crucial for new productdevelopment meeting the consumer’s demands for wholesome fish and fish products.

Materials and methodsA qualitative approach was chosen in order to gain in-depth knowledge on perceivedmotives and barriers among heavy and light users of fish and to supplement earlierresearch findings in relation to fish quality evaluation. All in all six focus groups werecarried out. Prior to the focus group interviews, an interview guide was developed tosecure consistency across groups and countries. The interview guide (the guide isshown in the Appendix, described the structure and topics to be discussed and wasdeveloped with the objective of:

(1) identifying motives and barriers for fish consumption among consumers; and

(2) exploring consumers’ quality evaluation of fish and the cues that consumers usefor quality evaluation.

The guide took point of departure in the theoretical approach and previous findingsoutlined earlier in the paper. Also the framework of food-related lifestyle (Brunsø andGrunert, 1995) was used. That framework outlines five areas that are important forconsumers’ food-related life style, e.g. ways of shopping, quality aspects, mealpreparation, consumption situations and purchasing motives and gave inspiration formotivational aspects in relation to food choice, and to meal preparation issues. Food, asany other product, is a means by which consumers can achieve the values that are


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important to them in their lives. Finally, information about relevant categories andconstructs to be used has, as described in the previous section, been found in studies onconsumer attitudes towards fish (Peavey et al., 1994), and on important cognitiveantecedents for consumer choices of fish (Foxall et al., 1998), as well as in the work byLeek et al. (2000) discussing situational determinants of fish consumption.

Two countries were chosen for the qualitative focus group discussions, Spain andBelgium. The choice of these two countries was deliberately based on the need forinformation and comparison of consumer preferences in both a typical heavy usercountry and a light user country. Spain has the second highest consumption of fish inthe world (FASonline, 2002) with a consumption of approximately 40 kg/capita/yearwhile Belgium is among the countries with the lowest consumption of fish in Europewith a consumption of approximately 10 kg/capita/year (Brunsø, 2003; GfK, 2005).Three focus group interviews were carried out in each country, one heavy user groupand two light user groups in both Spain and Belgium. This composition was chosen inorder to be sure to receive in-depth information on the barriers that prevent theconsumers from eating fish – information which we expected to get primarily from thelight users. Due to very different consumption levels in the two countries, we had tospecify the consumption levels of heavy and light users differently in Spain andBelgium. This way, a heavy user in Spain consumes fish 4-5 times a week while aheavy user in Belgium consumes fish at least once a week. A Spanish light userconsumes fish 1-2 times a week while the Belgian light user consumes fish once amonth and some even more rarely. All respondents recruited for the focus groupdiscussions were people responsible for purchasing and preparation of food and fishfor home consumption. All groups were mixed concerning age in order to have bothelder and younger consumers represented in each group. In both countries professionalresearch agencies assisted in conducting the focus group interviews, e.g. agenciesconducted the recruitment of participants by phone based on agreed recruitmentcriteria, secured adaptation and translation of the interview guides and assisted withprofessional facilitation of the group interviews. In Spain the group discussions werecarried out in two different cities (Madrid and Bilbao) in order to explore eventualspecific regional differences between the coastal and non-coastal area in Spain. InBelgium all groups were carried out in Ghent, which is centrally located between thecapital Brussels and the Belgium coastal area. The various group interviews lastedbetween 150 and 180 minutes and were video recorded as well as voice recorded andtranscribed for subsequent data analysis.

The analysis was structured as to follow the outlined theoretical framework, e.g. tofollow the TPB and TFQM frameworks for the exploration of motives/barriers and fishquality evaluation, respectively. Here motives are analysed as important valuedattributes and barriers are seen as a part of behavioural control, while qualityperception including price and sensory aspects are analysed as related to the TFQM asframework. Unless explicitly mentioned, the findings relate to opinions and beliefsabout fresh fish primarily.

Empirical findings and resultsAttitudinal motivesIt is the general opinion among all respondents in both Spain and Belgium that fish is avery healthy product and the consumption of fish is essential to have a balanced diet. It

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is a common thought that fish contributes to human health and well-being, and alsothat it is healthier than meat. The perception of fish as very healthy food is explainedby the low content of fat and cholesterol in fish and by the fact that fish is very easy todigest which – as opposed to meat – makes fish more suitable to eat at night/fordinner. Any fish species is considered to be healthy. Almost no consumer was able tofurther substantiate what exactly makes fish healthy. Only after probing by theinterviewers, some fish users were able to refer to omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids(PUFA) as the most likely reason for fish healthiness. It should be noted that the datawere collected in the early days of the omega-3 hype. Consumers’ relatively poorfactual knowledge about fish health, including poor awareness of fish’s content ofomega-3 fatty acids was also reported in another recent study (Verbeke et al., 2005).Freshness is a fundamental issue and a condition for the healthy qualities, which isperceived to be completely lost when the fish is not fresh enough. Also the good taste ismentioned as something that gives an added value to fish. Especially among the heavyusers in Belgium fish choice is determined by taste preferences and less as a result offish’s healthy image.

Furthermore, the heavy users like to cook and they cook fish very often. They findthat the time spent on the preparation of fish really does pay. Especially the elderheavy users like to cook and they spend a lot of time cooking. They cook difficultrecipes and in Spain they cook fish very often. One of the Spanish heavy users cooksfish everyday and the rest of the heavy users cook fish 4-6 times a week. Also most ofthe young heavy users like to cook, but they spend less time cooking. Most of them areemployed and do not have much time to cook.

To sum up, the most important motives for the consumption of fish in Spain andBelgium are that fish is perceived as very healthy food (low fat/cholesterol, easy todigest, doctors recommend it) and as having a good taste. These drivers forconsumption are universal and do not change across the different segments with lowversus high consumption levels of fish, so we may conclude that the drivers for fishconsumption are in line with the cross-cultural drivers for food choices found inEurope. Still, especially heavy users like to prepare food and fish more and see thecompetence to cook advanced foods and recipes as a motive in itself.

Attitudinal barriersThe perception of fish as a very expensive product is the main barrier to fishconsumption in both Spain and Belgium. This way, all the segments mentioned thatthe main reason for not eating more fish is that fish is a very expensive product as thefollowing statements made by consumers show:

Fish is very expensive and this is why many families do not buy it . . .

. . . if they want to sell more fish, they have to lower the price.

Furthermore, the participants agreed that fish is not only more expensive than meat,but also does not fill up as much as meat. Fish is perceived to be lighter, easier todigest; and therefore also evoking feelings of hunger earlier than in the case of meat, forexample:

You quickly feel hungry again . . .


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Thus consumers feel they have to consume more fish – which is yet perceived as moreexpensive – to have the same feeling of satiety:

If you buy one kilo of meat you have food for many persons . . . but with one kilo of fish . . .

after removing the bones, the head, the skin . . . you have almost nothing.

Additionally, consumers claim that there are no cheap species/forms of fish comparedto meat, whereas sausages or minced meat are seen as cheaper alternatives for roasts,especially by consumers in Belgium:

A major difference with meat is that within the meat category several low priced cuts orproducts with good quality are available; we do not see this parallel with fish, unless withwhole and small fish that are not convenient to prepare and eat.

However, one respondent in Belgium remarked that some fish species have becomemore affordable, since lower priced, owing to fish farming. The examples mentionedwere salmon and lobster, associated with typical statements such as:

Ten years ago, salmon or lobster were quite exclusive, we ate these products once a year atmost, or only for special occasions . . . A good illustration is the fact that especially salmon,but also lobster have become quite commonplace in restaurant’s daily dishes, which are soldat 10 euro or less. This would never happen if the products were expensive.

Most of the participants though had never thought of this before.Other barriers, mentioned by all segments in both countries, were annoying strong

smells when cooking the fish:

. . . after making a meal with fish, your kitchen and house will smell for hours.

Also the fact that many children do not like to eat fish because of the taste, the smelland the bones is perceived as a barrier for fish consumption. Bones were morementioned as a barrier by respondents in Belgium while Spanish respondents perceivelack of time as barrier for preparing fish, which is regarded as more time consumingthan the preparation of meat. The time barrier in Spain does not, however, affect all thesegments. Heavy users are not so affected by time as the light users who, apart fromthe fact that they might not have the time, also to a greater extent than the heavy usersconsider the preparation of fish to be very time-consuming, as will be explained below.

The light users do, in general, not like to cook very much and do not think that thetime spend on preparation of fish does pay. They also use easier recipes whenpreparing fish. There is a tendency that elder light users spend time on cooking eventhough they do not like it at all. However for some of the light users – primarily theyounger light users – time seems to be the main factor for not liking to cook:

I do like to cook – but you need time to cook and when you do not have the time you makefast meals . . . I do not like that.

Furthermore, light users in Belgium claimed that fish consumption has to be “planned”very well:

Buying and preparing fish has to be well planned; when you buy fish, you have to get it homequickly and eat it preferably the same day. This is not the case with meat that can be storedfor a couple of days in the refrigerator without quality deterioration.

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In line with their strong interest in convenience, light users in Belgium had a goodappreciation of frozen fish, particularly frozen fish fillets. Perceived benefits ofpurchasing and using frozen fish related to convenience and quality:

It is easy with frozen fish fillets, you can always have them at home, they go directly from thefreezer in the pan, they are OK, they don’t smell and they are ready within a couple of minutesonly.

In Spain, the preparation of fish is in general perceived as more time consuming thanthe preparation of meat. Among the Spanish light users, the preparation of fish is alsoperceived as more difficult than the preparation of meat. They agree that it takeslonger time to prepare fish and some of the light users think that cooking of fish doesnot pay compared to meat. The heavy users, on the other hand, do not find the cookingof fish difficult, but during the week – where especially the young respondents haveless time – they prefer an easy preparation in order to spend less time cooking. Themore difficult recipes are saved for the weekends:

. . . if I have all the afternoon I really like to prepare something more difficult . . . it all dependson the life that you have.

Thus a busy life style may limit the time left for cooking, even when cooking isappreciated, and this might be particularly detrimental for fish consumption.

In Belgium, on the contrary, most respondents believe that fish is easy to prepare;some even consider the preparation of fish easier than meat. Many of the Belgianparticipants state that to prepare fish on Friday is an old Catholic tradition. Fish is alsooften served when having a party or another kind of celebration. As opposed to Spain,where fish is a basic part of the daily diet, the Belgians perceive fish as something“chicque” – something you can use to “show off” because you can show your gueststhat you know how to prepare fish and maybe even a good sauce to go with it.

Thus, we find major differences in the perception of preparation of fish, bothbetween heavy and light users and between the two countries, and it seems as if thesedifferences are closely related to consumption habits and traditions.

Perceived cues for evaluating fresh fish quality – (TFQM framework)Quality is a major criterion when shopping and consumers look for specific qualitycues when they shop. As mentioned previously, earlier studies have shown that manyconsumers are not able to use intrinsic cues when evaluating the quality of fresh fish.The ones that are actually able to use the intrinsic cues will typically be heavy users or“fish lovers” (Juhl and Poulsen, 2000). The results from the heavy user country Spainare quite consistent with this assumption. This way, the Spanish respondents felt ingeneral they were able to use different intrinsic cues when evaluating the quality offresh fish and mentioned that the fish must be bright-eyed, have pink gills, look freshand smell well in order to be of good quality. A few of the respondents (light users fromBilbao) also mentioned that they would like to touch the fish in order to determine if itis fresh. Apart from the mentioned quality cues, the Spanish respondents look for fishof national origin and they clearly prefer wild fish and fresh fish to farmed fish andfrozen fish, respectively. The quality indicators used by the Spanish consumers asimportant criteria when shopping tend to be quite similar across the differentsegments. Also note that the quality cues used by the Spanish consumers apply mainly


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for whole fish, whose availability is commonplace especially in the Spanish coastalareas and public market places.

Many of the Belgian respondents do not really know which indicators they should usewhen judging the freshness of the fish and their way of evaluating quality tends to bequite irrational. Among the Belgian light users there is a tendency to use price and outletas an indicator for quality. The higher the price is, the better the expected quality. TheBelgian heavy users are less convinced that price can be used as an indicator for quality.As described earlier, the way especially less experienced fish consumers use intrinsicquality cues to infer expected quality can sometimes be irrational. As an example, theBelgian respondents used their perception of rotation of fish in the shop as an indicatorfor freshness – believing that the more often people purchased fish in a shop, the fasterthe fish would be replaced, leading to fresher fish in the counter.

I know this fish monger is selling top quality for the simple reason that I see merchantssupplying fresh fish at almost the same rate as the fish is sold.

When standing in the queue at the counter, I regularly see fresh fish being supplied: then youreally know the fish is fresh.

After the purchase, the freshness of the fish is judged by the smell of the fish whencooking it:

When it smells during preparation at home, you know that this fish was not fresh when youbought it.

As discussed above, the Belgian consumers do not know much about which indicatorsto use for evaluating fish quality compared to Spanish consumers who are much moreknowledgeable and familiar with which intrinsic cues to use to infer and evaluate fishquality. In Spain, optimal quality fish was characterised as:

. . . a Spanish (national) fresh or wild, though cheap fish.

However, elements like price and time spent on shopping can cause some consumers toprefer other fish qualities, i.e. solutions fitting better with actual needs and thereforenecessitating trade-offs, e.g. with respect to convenience. In relation to the attributes“species”, “country of origin” and “wild” there is a general agreement among Spanishconsumers about their influence on the quality of the fish. The species of fish is notconsidered to be an important issue in relation to the quality of fish, national fish areconsidered to be of better quality than foreign fish and wild fish are preferred:

Of course, if I did not have any other opportunity I would eat fish from a foreign country, butit is not my preference.

Belgian respondents do not seem to have a clear picture of the optimal quality fish. Forthem fish quality is equal to freshness. Fish must, first of all, be fresh, butunfortunately the majority of the Belgian consumers do not know which cues to use indetermining the quality (freshness) of the fish. Different types of species are notimportant for the evaluation of fish quality. Country of origin, though only for heavyusers and because of its inference value with respect to fish safety or risk issues, isconsidered to be an important issue in relation to the quality of fish:

It is important to know the origin of fish because then you have an idea of the cleanliness ofthe water.

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There is no general agreement among Belgium respondents about the influence of wildversus farmed on quality of the fish.

Exploring and comparing cross-cultural consumer segmentsWhen analysing the focus group interviews from a segmentation perspective thereseems to be a cross-cultural pattern of consumer groups, and we will below brieflydescribe these consumer segments based on their motives and barriers for adoptingfish in meal patterns as well as their ability to determine the quality of the fish. It isimportant here to stress that the nature of the data only allows us to suggest that thesecross-cultural segments may exist – and further quantitative descriptive analysis isneeded in order to confirm this tendency of grouping we have found.

Skilled and demanding fish consumersThis segment is the most demanding with regard to fish quality, and the majority ofconsumers in this segment comes from Spain. They consume fish 4-6 times a week,they love to cook and they are very skilled and knowledgeable about how to preparethe fish. They do not mind to spend time on cooking or to use difficult recipes. Theywill not buy frozen fish in any circumstances. They are experts in evaluating thefreshness of the fish and they do not mind to pay a premium price in order to get thebest possible quality. Some of the younger women in this segment can be forced tomake compromises due to lack of time, but only because they are forced to – it isdefinitely not their preference. Even though this profile is cross-cultural, we are awarethat most consumers belonging to this segment will be found in countries with strongfish consumption traditions such as Spain. This segment will demand fish products ofhigh quality standards, will be interested in detailed information about the fish and itsorigin. The Belgian branch of this segment consists mainly of older consumers who arealso heavy users of fish. This segment shows several similarities, such as the highestpersonal importance attached to fish quality and the strongest interest in additionalinformation about fish quality, with the segment of “Fish connoisseurs” as identifiedby Verbeke et al.(2007), which accounted for less than 10 per cent of the fish consumersin Belgium.

Skilled, but willing to compromiseIn this segment we find Spanish light users and the major share of Belgian heavyusers, who consume fish approximately twice a week. They have certain qualitydemands, but they are not willing to spend so much time on neither shopping norcooking of fish as the first segment, and they are not willing to pay whatever price ittakes to get the best quality. This way, the light user segment in Madrid only chooseswild fish if this is not more expensive than farmed fish and they are in general notespecially reluctant to buy frozen fish if it is cheaper or if they can save some timewhen it comes to preparation and cooking. There seems to be good opportunities tomeet the demands from these consumers by making fish quality evaluation andcooking easier – they are interested and willing to buy and eat fish, but find it moretroublesome compared to other alternatives. Thus, there is a major potential forincreasing fish consumption in this segment if the barriers they perceive can beovercome, e.g. through providing easy and convenient fish meal solutions to theseconsumers.


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The un-skilled light usersThis segment consists mainly of the Belgian light users who consume fish once amonth or even less frequently. The segment is characterised primarily by the fact thatthey feel highly un-skilled in evaluating the quality of the fish. They do want the fish tobe fresh, but their best way of judging the freshness, is by looking at the rotation in theshop. Moreover, price is considered an important indicator of fish quality: the higherthe price, the better the perceived quality. The consumers in this segment often preferto “hide” the fish in a sauce. However, their cooking skills are often not good enough tomake a good fish sauce. A ready-made fish sauce an very easy recipes could thereforebe possible ideas for future developments that may increase consumption among theseun-skilled light users.

Discussion and implicationsThe current study is only exploratory in nature, and therefore conclusions andgeneralisations to the wider population remain speculative in the absence of furtherquantitative validation using larger and representative consumer samples. Nevertheless,this exploratory cross-cultural study reveals relevant insights in motives/barriers andquality evaluation cues and processes across light and heavy fish consumer segments.As can be seen from the results there are both similarities and differences between thetwo investigated countries. It is interesting to see that even though we are dealing withcountries with very different fish consumption levels and traditions, we find the sameattitudinal motives and barriers for eating fish. On the contrary, there is quite adifference between the Belgian and the Spanish consumer when it comes to perceptionsof fish preparation and the use of quality cues in fish quality evaluations. Very much inline with the existing theory, we find that the more experienced consumers in Spain aremore skilled in the use of quality cues than the less experienced consumers in Belgium.

As described previously, earlier studies have shown that many barriers are relatedto the level of experience of the individual consumer with fish, and in general morebarriers are perceived by the less experienced consumers than by the more experiencedones (Nielsen et al., 1997). Looking at the results from Spain, the findings from the focusgroups are quite consistent also with this statement, as it is very evident that the timebarrier in relation to the preparation of fish is stronger for the less experiencedconsumers than for the more experienced. However, in Belgium, where the consumersare much less experienced, time is not perceived as a major barrier. This contradictionmight be explained by the fact that the Belgian consumers only cook fish very seldom,and as a consequence the use of time is not the major barrier. Instead barriers aremainly related to quality uncertainty in relation to buying (choosing) fish and inrelation to how to prepare the chosen fish. This is an interesting and unexpected result;it seems as if problems related to preparation of fish depends heavily on traditions,habits and daily routines. As a consequence the major barrier regarding fishpreparation in Belgium is not time in the first instance, but that the consumer does notknow how to prepare fish (which happens very seldom), while the major problem inSpain is not how the fish is prepared but rather the time it takes since this happensvery often and is often based on whole fresh fish. This result needs furtherinvestigation, and indicates that product development targeted at making fishpreparation easier must take specific habits and daily routines into account in order tounderstand the real problems and barriers consumers experience.

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To conclude we have found both expected and unexpected similarities anddifferences among consumer groups. Even though we on purpose selected twocountries with very different fish consumption levels and traditions, we found the sameattitudinal motives and barriers for fish consumption. The respondents agreed that themain motives for eating fish are health and taste, while the main barriers are priceperception, smell when cooking the fish and that fish does not fill you up / deliver thesame level of satiety.

On the other hand, we find differences in the way problems related to preparing fishare perceived, both between countries and between segments, and the differences seemto be linked to the way fish as a meal is involved in daily consumption habits. Furtherresearch is needed in order to investigate this issue in more depth.

The study also sheds light on the quality cues the consumers use in relation to fishconsumption. As opposed to the motives and barriers there are big differences betweenthe countries concerning this issue. It can be concluded that the consumers in the heavyuser country, Spain are very skilled concerning which cues to use when evaluating thequality of fish. On the contrary, the Belgian consumers, who can be characterised aslight users, make seemingly irrational assumptions when evaluating the quality of fish,simply because they lack experience, confidence and knowledge about which cues touse.

Finally, based on the study, a sketch of three consumer segments has beenproposed. “The skilled and demanding”, who consume fish four-six times a week andwho can be characterised as fish-experts; “Skilled, but willing to compromise”, whoknow a lot about fish, but who also are willing to make compromises in order to savetime or money when purchasing and preparing fish; and finally “The un-skilled lightusers”, who consume fish very rarely and who have no idea about how to evaluate thequality of fish. Further quantitative research is recommended to validate thesemotives, barriers and hypothesised fish consumer segments.

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.Appendix

Figure A1.Interview guide for focusgroup discussions

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Figure A1.


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Corresponding authorKaren Brunsø can be contacted at: [email protected]

Figure A1.

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motives, barriers and quality evaluation in fish consumption

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