Investigation of Consumer Behavior in terms of Seafood Consumption: Mersin Province Example

Abstract

Seafood products are valuable nutrients in healthy nutrition in terms of proteins, vitamins, minerals, and omega fatty acids. This study was conducted by face-to-face survey method between April-May 2017 on 1214 people in Akdeniz, Mezitli, Toroslar, and Yenişehir districts of Mersin province to determine consumer behaviors related to aquaculture products, taking into account gender, age, income, employment and education status and the number of people living at home. Data were analyzed by a series od chi-squared tests using SPSS 20 statistical package. Results of the present study revealed that 47% of people living in Mersin preferred red meat, 37.9% fowl meat, and 13.7% fish meat. Most consumed fish species by the survey participants were anchovy (24.7%), sea bream (23.3%), sea bass (20.4%), red mullet (11.2%), pilchard (7.4%), trout (4.9%), smelt (1.9%), mullet (1.7%) and other species (4.4%). Fish was consumed fresh by 94.3 % of the surveyors and that 45.5 % of the consumption was throughout the year and 44.3 % in winter. Most people preferred fried fish (49.7%), and the consumption frequency of 33.2% of surveyors was once a month. According to sexes, 27.3% of the women and 22.3 % of males consumed anchovy most. The highest percentage of people consuming fish (15.4%) was above the age of forty-five. 33.4% of the educational groups consumed fish once a month, fish consumption were once a week (30.5%) in public workers and once a month (31%) in private sectors. Fish preference of income groups were as follows; 1000-1500 TL anchovy (41.7%), 2000-2500 TL anchovy + sea bream (24.3%) and over 3000 TL sea bass (32.2%). The consumption rate of seemed to be lower than expectation in Mersin City keeping its aquatic product potential in mind. Hence it was concluded that aquatic product consumption habits should be given to children and youth and introductive and encouraging steps should be taken for its sustainability.