Trend analysis of sustainability claims: The European fisheries and aquaculture markets case

Sterenn Lucas, Louis-Georges Soler and Cesar Revoredo-Giha

Food Policy, 2021, vol. 104, issue C

Abstract: The future of European fisheries and aquaculture depends not only on their capacity to innovate (e.g., introduce new products) but also on their ability to realize sustainable production given the environmental concerns surrounding fisheries. Market tools can be used to signal sustainability to consumers by balancing sustainability and competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to explore the trends related to the introduction of fishery and aquaculture products (FAPs) with sustainability attributes among 32,215 products commercialized in Europe between 2000 and 2019 using Mintel’s Global New Products Database (GNPD). The data provide information on a variety of sustainability claims on product packages. Of all the FAPs, 35.21% included at least one sustainability claim. We used trend analysis to investigate the countries and species that lead the introduction of new products associated with sustainability to understand the drivers of sustainability in the European FAP markets. The results indicated that the share of FAPs launched in the market with sustainability claims was increasing across Europe, mainly driven by sustainability on raw material and sustainable packaging, while sustainable products with organic or animal welfare claims were not market drivers of sustainability. In addition to differences in the sustainability claims by country, we highlighted some heterogeneity in the market across species. Nevertheless, market incentives to promote sustainability, while matching consumer expectations, also seemed efficient in effectively promoting sustainable resources.

Keywords: Sustainability claims; Ecolabel; Trend analysis of time series; Fishery and aquaculture market; New product (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C22 L1 Q11 Q13 Q22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919221001202
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Trend analysis of sustainability claims: The European fisheries and aquaculture markets case (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:104:y:2021:i:c:s0306919221001202

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102141

Access Statistics for this article

Food Policy is currently edited by J. Kydd

More articles in Food Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().