Abstract
Product labelling with eco-certifications is market-based incentive tool for sustainable aquaculture, thus mitigating negative environmental impacts. The aims of this study are to investigate: i) whether consumers prefer eco-labelled (eco-certified) shrimps over conventional (non-certified) shrimp; and ii) whether consumers prefer specific eco-label (eco-certification logo) over others. The study used a discrete choice experiment method and the structured interviews with 353 consumers in Khanh Hoa province and Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. The results show that a majority of consumers prefer shrimp product. They place higher value on eco-labelled shrimps compared to conventional shrimp. Despite the heterogeneity in preference for eco-labelled shrimp products, highest premium is recorded for farmed shrimp labelled with ASC logo – a third-party certification. Meanwhile, the shrimp labelled with VietG.A.P logo, Vietnamese government certification, has lowest premium. Consumers, who believe that the contribution of individual actions is significant for better aquaculture practices, are willing to pay more for eco-labbelled shrimps. The findings provide scientific evidences on how consumer participation is supporting the transition to sustainable aquaculture in Vietnam. Policy implications for policymakers in terms of sustainable aquaculture development in Vietnam and for marketers designing the effective marketing strategies in the retail food sector are also discussed.
Highlights
Aquaculture is the fasted growing food sector worldwide (Bray, 2018)
Little efforts has been done to investigate the potential of sustainable seafood markets in developing countries, despite the fact that aquaculture production is mostly allo cated in the Asia-Pacific region (FAO, 2018a; Potts et al, 2016)
In the mixed logit (MIXL) model, 3000 modified Latin hypercube sampling (MLHS) random draws per respondent and random parameter was used
Summary
Aquaculture is the fasted growing food sector worldwide (Bray, 2018) It is controversial because of its environmental impacts, such as water pollution, disease outbreaks, mangrove destruction, and natural resource degradation (Edwards, 2015). Despite the number of efforts to establish markets for certified aquaculture products, the share of these products in the world market has remained small. It accounted for 6% of global aquaculture supply in 2015 and dominated in developed coun tries, i.e. with Norway, Chile and Spain, it accounted for over 50% of the global total (Potts et al, 2016). Targeted species in these studies are mainly finfish rather than other groups of seafood such as crustacean and molluscs, even though the share of crustacean and molluscs production was about 44% of the finfish in 2016 (Cantillo et al, 2020; FAO 2018)
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