Exploring the consumer perception of seafood: a look at Brazilians

Although Brazil has a wide variety of marine aquaculture species, production is still incipient compared to the world’s main producers, and consequent consumption by the population does not reach recommended levels. Understanding the reasons that lead consumers to low consumption of seafood and scallops can help leverage the sector, favoring the local gastronomy, in addition to enhancing the consumption of good quality proteins. The word association (WA) technique, modulated by the food neophobia and the socio-demographic profiles of participants, was used to investigate the perception of Brazilian consumers in relation to seafood and scallops with the aim to contribute to the development of strategies that can collaborate to increase the consumption of these products. The study was carried out with 738 people (56% female). The associations generated by participants were mainly related to positive hedonic characteristics: tasty, delicious and good, especially when they were asked about seafood. These positive hedonic characteristics were less mentioned for scallops and mainly among participants who do not consume seafood regularly. In general, income, consumption habits and lack of knowledge about scallops can interfere with the frequency of the mollusk consumption. The degree of food neophobia played a role on participant’s task and the associations generated by low and medium food neophobia consumers for seafood were mainly related to positive hedonic characteristics. The results provided interesting information on consumers' perceptions of seafood and scallops and may contribute to the development of products that better meet consumer expectations, contributing to the expansion and diversification of the local culinary.