demonstrated conclusively by these demonstrations that canned tuna 

 consumption can be increased several foldo 



Present consumption of canned tuna and tunalike fishes in the 

 United States is slightly over 11 million standard cases annually. 

 On the basis of statistical analyses made in this survey and detail- 

 ed on pages 89 to 98, it is estimated that in I960 consumption will 

 increase to about 15 million standard cases. The market least dev- 

 eloped seems to be that of the North Central Area of the United 

 States and the South. This may be determined from the data shown 

 in figure 9o These areas have a much higher percentage of rural farmi 

 population. The relatively low use of canned tuna by that part of 

 the United States population generally is shown in table 11. Farmers, 

 particularly Negro farmers in the Souths have built up a preference 

 for canned salmon because of the relatively low price of certain types 

 such as canned chum salmon. In addition, rural areas are not attrac- 

 tive for intensive selling effort because relatively less results per 

 dollar of sales effort are usually obtained. Nevertheless, those 

 areas offer the tuna canning industry the possibility of expanded 

 sales if no effort is spared to determine and effect means of dev- 

 eloping the canned tuna market. 



Foreign market development was also given consideration since 

 some members of the tuna industry believe that markets can be dev- 

 eloped for canned tuna in countries outside of the United States. 

 Such possibilities may exist in isolated instances where a relative- 

 ly small amount of trade in canned tuna may be developed. However, 

 there is little liklihood that anything can be developed on a scale 

 which would significantly change the present pattern of distribution 

 for some time to come. 



Outside of the United States there are only two other major 

 tuna consuming countries in the vforld, Japan and Italy, The nature of 

 markets for tuna in those countries is quite different than ours. The 

 Japanese consume very little canned tuna, preferring other forms of 

 tuna products. Italians consume canned tuna but in a much different 

 style of pack than that which is marketed in the United States. Con- 

 suners in both Japan and Italy on the whole prefer the darker-raeated 

 tunas such as skipjack and bluefin and tunalike fishes such as bonito. 



The most important canned tuna product consumed in Italy is tuna 

 preserved in oil. This product is packed in what is known as "Italian 

 Style", This particular type of pack is heavily salted and only olive 

 oil is used as compared to the use of soya oil for the greater part of 

 the pack processed and sold in the United States. 



85 



