the inevitable arbiters of what and how much 

 will be produced. Meticulous production sched- 

 ules and faultless distribution mechanics can 

 become expensive exercises in the face of con- 

 sumer aloofness. In Marshallian terms, the 

 consumer is the regulator of all demands, his 

 yeas and nays expressed convincingly in his 

 mode of allocating limited funds. 



Marketing problems represent, in large part, 

 an encounter with "consumerism," i.e. the de- 

 cision-making process undertaken by consu- 

 mers in their acts of purchasing. Consumer 

 actions (or reactions) characteristically defy 

 prediction, however, and render the best of 

 marketing strategies uncertain. New products 

 introduced by food companies, for example, 

 have less than a one in four chance of success. 

 Nonetheless there are discernible patterns in 

 consumer behavior. Studies have established 

 reasonable inferences that prices, size of in- 

 come, ethnic origin, age, and other demographic 

 variables influence consumption of food prod- 

 ucts. The present survey was designed to test 

 the applicability of these inferences to fish 

 product consumption. 



The survey's approach was direct. Members 

 of a representative consumer panel, consisting 

 of 1,500 households throughout the United 

 States, logged the details of their fish product 

 purchases for a 12-month period, February 

 1969 to January 1970. Essential character- 

 istics of each household were known — income, 

 ages, etc. — making it possible to arrange the 

 data for intergroup comparisons and for ex- 

 amination for evidence of relationships be- 

 tween various demographic characteristics and 

 fish consumiition. The Service recognizes that 

 knowledge of these relationshii)s is a prereq- 

 uisite to the formulation of successful market- 

 ing strategies and accurate forecasting. 



SCOPE OF THE ANALYSIS 



The focus of this paper is on certain char- 

 acteristics of shellfish consumption. Major 

 shellfish species are covered in the analysis as 

 well as other seafood varieties where compar- 

 isons are relevant. Five aspects of consumption 

 are examined: (1) geographic concentration 

 and distribution patterns, (2) seasonality fact- 

 ors, (3) comparisons between volumes con- 

 sumed at home and away from home, (4) re- 



lationships between size of income and volume 

 consumed, and (5) effects of age on consumer 

 preferences. 



The analysis touches only highlights of the 

 survey. Nonetheless, these reveal several im- 

 portant characteristics of fishery product con- 

 sumption in the United States. These are dis- 

 cussed under the five above-noted topic 

 headings. 



GEOGRAPHIC CONCENTRATION 

 AND DISTRIBUTION PATTERNS' 



The survey revealed marked regional differ- 

 ences in apparent consumer preferences for 

 fishery products. Shellfish varieties, for ex- 

 amijle, are highly popular in New England 

 where per capita at-home consumption is more 

 than double the U.S. average. The per capita 

 rate of finfish consumption in New England, 

 however, is not much above the national aver- 

 age (Appendix 2) . In the West South Central 

 States the reverse is true. ' While the area's 

 per capita rate of finfish consumption tops the 

 national average by 15'^f, the shellfish con- 

 sumption rate is below average. The picture 

 in the North Central States is again different. 

 There, per capita consumption of both fish and 

 shellfish are well below national averages. 



The above examples are indicative of the re- 

 gional contrasts in aggregate fish and shellfish 

 consumption in the United States. These con- 

 trasts are illustrated in Figures 1, 2, and 3, 

 which relate consumption to regional popula- 



See Appendix 1 for geographic divisions. 



j U.S. coMiaptloa 



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 U.S., 



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Figure 1. — Regional distribution of total shellfish con- 

 sumption (at home) and population, 1969. Source: 

 Appendix 2. 



