At the end of 2024, an online survey was conducted by Innovate Solutions in four different countries: Ireland, Norway, Spain and Turkey. The aim was to map the current beliefs and associations Europeans consumers have towards seaweed through a survey divided into multiple sections.
First section aimed to get a better understanding about the relationship between consumer’s willingness to try seaweed products and their eating behaviours and preferences and Food Neophobia. Different demographic factors such as the influence of living location (i.e., coastal and inland areas) were also explored.
The second section explored consumers knowledge about seaweed, their beliefs and organoleptic associations, and how these could be influenced by their past experiences. Additionally, consumers were asked about the knowledge of any traditional local dish containing seaweed. This information could be of high value when developing new food prototypes. Finally, the last section focused on the identifying what food categories and expected food prototypes would be more successful among the European consumers. Additionally, questionnaire served to identify the main organoleptic drivers for the seaweed food prototypes to succeed in each country.
Responses from 4550 participants helped to identify differences and similarities between countries. Ireland was the country with the largest percentage of participants willing to try seaweed products. Differences in organoleptic associations (colour, flavour, taste and mouthfeel) were found to be associated to each country whereas different beliefs were driven by consumers previous exposure. For consumers who had never eaten seaweed, a lower variability was found in believing that healthy and sustainable statements (i.e., “seaweed are rich in fiber”, “seaweed are good for the environment”) were false. Specific prototypes such as fish burgers; fish cakes and rice balls were among the preferred options. Survey insights can be highly value for SINTEF and Porto-Muiños when developing the food prototypes with short and long-term shelf life.
