More if by Sea
A Message Platform to Shift American Appetites Towards the Ocean
“Two if by Sea.” That was Paul Revere’s signal that helped create the United States of America. More than two centuries later, eating two meals of fish and seafood is now part of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines
Relatively few heed that advice today. Less than one in five Americans are eating fish and seafood twice a week while nearly two thirds eat it only occasionally, between once a month and once a week.
Getting people who eat fish and seafood occasionally to choose it at just one more meal each week will increase the number of fish and seafood meals Americans eat by 80% and raise consumption by about the same amount.
That’s an ambitious goal. Achieving even a part of it will also provide substantial benefits to our health, our planet, and our taste buds.
The great news is that this ambitious goal is readily achievable given other recent changes in how Americans eat, where our protein choices have changed in even larger ways.
Americans are poised to eat more fish and seafood as they continue to reconsider their protein choices and preferences, with many favoring more fish and seafood.
The More if By Sea Message Platform provides an essential tool to help reach this bold and achievable ambition: getting over half of Americans to choose fish and seafood for one more meal each week. The platform contains two kinds of messages:
Business to Consumer messages to encourage consumers to choose fish and seafood a bit more often.
Business to Business messages to encourage retail and restaurant operations to change how they market fish and seafood to the tens of millions of people they touch each day.
Why a new message platform? Because, we are at a demographic fork in the road where changing the messages we use can both substantially increase the market for fish and seafood and also is critical to maintaining current demand.
That’s because current messaging will become less effective over time. The increase in fish and seafood consumption over the past decade has been driven by a message of simple, healthy, and delicious with a strong focus on nutrition including healthy fats and heart health. These messages have motivated many people in the Baby Boomer generation to eat fish and seafood twice a week. Until recently, Boomers have been America’s largest generation by number and purchasing power.
Now, America is experiencing a generational shift, accelerated by COVID.
Every generation declines over time and COVID has accelerated the decline of the Baby Boomer generation. In 2020, Boomers lost their standing as the largest demographic group. They experienced much greater losses from COVID and saw their spending power decline as their pace of retirement increased.
Younger generations make up a much larger share of the American adult population than in several decades with Millennials now being the largest demographic group. They are also best positioned to increase seafood consumption as younger generations are less likely to already eat it twice a week and more likely to eat it only occasionally.
To increase fish and seafood consumption, rather than see it decline, we need to adopt new messages and approaches that match the priorities, preferences, and attitudes of the younger generations who are more likely to eat seafood in restaurants or at least have others cook their meals. They are the group poised to drive an increase in fish and seafood consumption and they also consider “health” in broader terms than just nutrition. They have a holistic understanding of “wellness” and connect their health to the planet, animals, and others who produce food.
They, and, along with Gen X and Gen Z, the smaller generations before and after them, eat fish and seafood less frequently and cook fish and seafood for themselves much less often.
With that as our context, we provide you with this new message platform to motivate more Americans to eat fish and seafood more often.
Click here to vIEW OUR PRESENTATION ON THE NEW MESSAGE PLATFORM TO THE CONSERVATION ALLIANCE FOR SEAFOOD SOLUTIONS
This is for you.
This new platform is for you and the many diverse companies and organizations working in the American food and seafood sectors. We have designed it for seafood companies, distributors, consumer facing companies in grocery retail and restaurant foodservice, and the host of allied organizations and trade groups working on nutrition, ocean conservation, and sustainable seafood.
With it, you can enhance the messages you share with your customers and stakeholders, whether that is through your sales and marketing efforts, what you communicate to your customers, the general public and through the media, and with clients and corporate partners including grocery retail and restaurant foodservice companies who in turn touch tens of millions of Americans each week.
