October 17, 2018 — A new survey on Russian seafood consumption has outlined the challenges facing suppliers of the domestic market.
The survey, conducted in late August by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), the biggest opinion research center in the country, asked 1,600 respondents aged 18 or older about their seafood preferences and buying habits. VCIOM presented the results at the II Global Fishery Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia in September, revealing price, quality, and convenience as the three biggest impediments to greater seafood consumption in Russia.
The survey’s results were not all negative – 73 percent of the population said they eat seafood at least once per week. Of that total, 42 percent of respondents said they eat fish several times a week, and an additional two percent said they eat seafood at least once every day. Just six percent said they don’t consume fish at all.
However, hiding deeper in the survey was worse news for the seafood industry. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they had reduced the amount of fish they had purchased recently, with just 11 percent increasing their seafood buying. Those who had reduced their spending cited higher prices (38 percent) and the absence of seafood of appropriate quality (36 percent) as the main reasons behind the decrease in their consumption.
The survey shows Russia’s seafood market is experiencing considerable headwinds as consumers’ purchasing habits due to ongoing economic hardships and a generational shift in eating preferences, according to Stanislav Naumov, the group director of the X5 Retail Group, the biggest retail company in Russia.