Testing the use of behavioural interventions in promoting the consumption

The project builds on the previously commissioned, Increasing consumption of locally landed fish in the UK: Explorative research to inform the development of behavioural interventions, which explored barriers and drivers to the consumption of UK-produced seafood.

Barriers and drivers identified included low awareness of provenance, prioritisation of price and taste, convenience and lack of cooking skill, unfamiliar look and feel. The authors proposed two broad intervention areas in the final scoping report:

1. Provence labelling intervention: To create seafood labelling that identifies British provenance, which people can automatically recognise and use to navigate their purchasing choices. Potential foci included either direct or indirect generic 'Buy British' messaging to introduce a concrete appeal to support local communities or, ideally, on the exact location of provenance to also trigger associations with familiarity and freshness. Labelling could also potentially inform customers how a product was sourced, for example, from a fishery under the regime of a UK fisheries management plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fisheries-management-plans).

2. Preparation intervention: Provide cooking hacks to help overcome barriers around expertise and experience in fish preparation. For example, to develop and popularise the 'oven bags' for UK-produced filets specifically, or ready meal options, and/or introduce more UK-produced choices in food delivery boxes.