A new approach to explain willingness-to-try seafood byproducts using elicited emotions

Authors: MURILLO, SILVIA - Louisiana State University Agcenter; Ardoin, Ryan; LI, BIN - Louisiana State University Agcenter; PRINYAWIWATKUL, WITOON - Louisiana State University Agcenter

Submitted to: Foods
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/28/2025
Publication Date: 7/30/2025
Citation: Murillo, S., Ardoin, R.P., Li, B., Prinyawiwatkul, W. 2025. A new approach to explain willingness-to-try seafood byproducts using elicited emotions. Foods. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14152676.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14152676

Interpretive Summary: The portions of fish and other seafood that remain after production of a main product (for example, fillets) are byproducts. Seafood byproducts can provide nutritional and economic value if consumers are accepting of their use in foods, which can be influenced by product-elicited emotions. An online survey of 716 US seafood consumers was used to determine which emotions were associated with seafood byproducts and how they influenced consumers' trial intent of foods containing seafood byrpoducts. When consumers' were informed of seafood byproduct safety, their trial intent increased, and additional health benefit information dictated which emotions affected their responses. This was demonstrated using different statistical models which offered simplified approaches to interpreting practical effects of food-evoked emotions. In addition, male and Hispanic consumers were most open to trying foods made with seafood byproducts. These results may guide how information and emotional appeals can be used to influence food choice toward new options.

Technical Abstract: Seafood processing byproducts (SB) such as bones and skin can be safely used as food in-gredients to increase profitability for the seafood sector and provide nutritional value. An online survey of 716 US adult seafood consumers was conducted to explore SB trial intent, responsiveness to health and safety information, and associated elicited-emotions (9-point Likert scale). Consumers’ SB-elicited emotions were defined as those changing in reported intensity [from a baseline condition] after delivery of SB-related information (dependent t-tests). As criteria for practical significance, a raw mean difference of > 0.2 units was used, and Cohen’s d values were used to classify effect sizes as small, medium, or large. Differ-ences in willingness-to-try, responsiveness to safety and health information, and SB-elicited emotions were found based on self-reported gender and race with males and Hispanics expressing more openness to SB consumption. SB-elicited emotions were then used to model consumers’ willingness-to-try foods containing SB via logistic regression modeling. Traditional stepwise variable selection was compared to variable selection us-ing raw mean difference > 0.2 units and Cohen’s d > 0.50 constraints for SB-elicited emo-tions. Resulting models indicated that extrinsic information considered at the point of de-cision-making determined which emotions were relevant to the response. These new ap-proaches yielded models with increased Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) values but could provide simpler and more practically meaningful models for understanding which emotions drive consumption decisions.