CONSUMER PREFERENCES OF SEAFOOD IN BELGIUM, SPAIN AND ITALY TO UNDERSTAND THE NEEDS OF THE MARKET.

Belgium, Spain and Italy are the major seafood export destination countries in Europe. Fish is an important element of the Mediterranean diet and also a part of the traditional European diet (Birch and Lawley, 2012). Studying the preferences of the consumers in these countries will help India to enhance export performance to these countries.

Data of 294 respondents from Belgium (148), Spain (87), and Italy (59) through a structured questionnaire by sequential snowball sampling technique. The questionnaire were filled from the natives of each country who attended the seafood expo at Brussels (2016) and also emailed to many respondents. Consumers were asked to rank their preference fish, shrimp, mussels, crab, lobster, squid and cuttle fish. Profile chart of the preference of three countries show that mussels are having closer relationship with Belgium while Spain is closely associated with lobster and cuttle fish and Italy with Crab. These results are significant for the marketers and producers of the Indian seafood Industry to help plan efficient marketing strategies and build new business opportunities.  .

Keywords: Seafood, Consumer behaviour, Seafood preferences, seafood export, seafood consumers.