Japanese Seafood Consumption: An Analysis of At-Home Consumption and General Trends

Research PaperIn the world, Japan has a special place in the fish consumption, as Japanese people are among the most\ud important consumers of aquatic food products, and Japan ranks first as fish importer, for supplying about\ud half of its market. Thus the changes in the Japanese seafood market are susceptible to have a considerable\ud impact on fisheries and aquaculture sectors in numerous countries.\ud Changes in fish consumption in Japan must be considered in the general context of deep changes which\ud affected the Japanese food system, notably a diversification in the type of food consumed through\ud internationalization, and more recently changes in the place and mode of consumption.\ud Our aim is to identify the main changes in the seafood consumption in Japan over the last 10 years. We\ud used the data issued from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey which allows to analyse the trends\ud in at-home consumption for fish and shellfish, for the main groups of products and the main commodities,\ud and the variation of consumption regarding to the income and to the age of the head of household. The\ud decrease in at-home consumption is confirmed, especially for young people, while eldest people appear as\ud an over-consuming subgroup. The lack of available information about the other types of consumption\ud (out-of-home and intermediate consumption), which importance has been dramatically growing, and\ud about the consumption by one-person households, limits the capacity to draw definitive conclusion and\ud invites to further investigation