Americans may finally be catching on to the health benefits of eating more seafood.
Despite increasing prices, American consumers are more resistant to cutting back on eating seafood than other grocery items according to data from analytics firm Numerator.
An important part of this consumer resistance are the health benefits of eating more seafood.
Seafood’s “health halo will be an important counter balance to the inflation seen thus far in 2021,” according to 210 Analytics Principal Anne-Marie Roerink as originally reported by Christine Blank in Seafood Source.
Building consumer awareness and understanding of the health benefits of eating more seafood didn’t happen by accident. It’s been the result of a unified effort by the seafood industry and its allies to get the message out about the health benefits of eating more seafood.
Jim Motos, Senior Vice President of the Consumer Brands Division of Rich Products Corporation, says, “Encouraging Americans to eat more seafood is backed by rigorous science. As we’ve been able to galvanize the industry around a consistent public health education effort, we’ve seen that message really pay off.”
However, some see this as just the beginning of what a unified seafood industry can do to improve the health of people, the planet, and the industry.
“Despite this promising consumer behavior, it’s far too early to declare victory,” says Linda Lai Cornish, President of the Seafood Nutrition Partnership. “We should be eating seafood at least twice per week to tap into the full health benefits of seafood, and only about 20 percent of Americans are meeting the dietary guidelines for seafood. We need a consistent and holistic seafood marketing campaign to solidify consumer behavior towards eating more seafood.”
At the beginning of April 2020 Seafood Nutrition Partnership, a leader in seafood health education, launched the Eat Seafood America! pilot campaign. Eat Seafood America! is a consumer marketing campaign that encourages Americans to eat a broad range of seafood at least twice per week.
The Eat Seafood America! efforts are already delivering promising results with more than 2 billion impressions. In ongoing consumer surveys, those who reported seeing the Eat Seafood America! messaging were three times more likely to have increased their seafood consumption.
“SNP has the best approach for the seafood industry for a unified consumer outreach campaign to increase seafood consumption, and I look forward to helping to move the SNP mission forward,” says Jason Driskill, Vice President – Seafood for H-E-B, who helped drive an integrated campaign at his grocer this summer around seafood’s benefits that included in-store signage, digital circular mentions, and digital advertising.
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