Behaviour, motivations and needs of consumersof freshfood products: new opportunities and marketing stratégies

Projet COGEPECHE - financé par FranceAgriMer et l'AGLIASince 2004, the French fishery field has had to cope with a levelling off of consumption of fresh seafood products whereas the consumption of processed seafood products is increasing. Nowadays, consumers prefer easier products: fresh deli products, easy to cook or ready to consume. Therefore, fresh seafood products do not seem to fulfil current consumer demand intrinsically (aspect, taste) and extrinsically (cooking methods, use, origin, brand and price). In order to understand the evolution of behaviour, motivation and consumers’ needs, several behavioural studies have been conducted within the COGEPECHE research programme. In our article we focus on three of them: focus group, trade off and cognitive map. This study has been carried out using an innovative methodology. First, focus groups were organized to evaluate cognitive, emotional and prospective behaviours. Then, the drivers and discriminate criteria of purchasing behaviour were analysed by the trade off method. A cognitive map was created in order to understand consumer expectations when purchasing seafood. Such association allowed us to highlight consumers’ purchasing criteria (price, freshness). However, dissonances have been shown between consumers’ declarations and their behaviour. As a whole, these methods have pointed out the lack of consumers’ knowledge about seafood products. Five general motives for seafood choices have been noted: safety, pleasure, health, convenience and ethics