”Consumers’ Understandings and Perceptions of Danish Organic Aquaculture – A Mixed Method Study”

Danish organic aquaculture is growing rapidly, which is not reflected in the consumer demand for these products in Denmark. Therefore, a mixed method study was conducted with the main purpose to investigate consumers’ understandings and perceptions of Danish organic aquaculture. Convenience sampling was employed to recruit 126 participants for a web-based survey and nine were further recruited for in-depth focus group discussion. The findings from this study shows that organic fish is often mistaken for wild caught fish. Factors including price, labelling, availability & information, reputation of the farmed fish, and cooking skills were identified to be influencing consumers. Despite price being a barrier, the results also showed that the majority of the consumers were willing to pay 10 DKK/portion more for organic fish. In conclusion, consumers have limited understanding of Danish organic aquaculture practices and perceived wild caught fish as a overall superior choice. However, future studies with large sample size with probability sampling and with multiple focus groups are necessary in order to confirm the findings