29 July 2005
United States U.S. Consumers are turning away from canned tuna, which for decades was the No. 1 seafood eaten by Americans.
Sales have tumbled 10 percent nationwide versus 16 months ago, causing a revenue loss of nearly $150 million.
Shock waves from the decline are being felt most in California. Chicken of the Sea and Bumble Bee have their headquarters in San Diego; Del Monte, which owns StarKist, is based in San Francisco. The big three distribute 85 percent of the canned tuna sold in the United States.
To reverse the downward trend and reinvigorate sales, nearly 50 tuna processors are banding together to mount a $25 million annual ad campaign. If all goes as planned, they'll start bombarding the airwaves and print media in the spring with the slogan: “Tuna - A Smart Choice.â€
Industry experts in San Diego say the sales drop began in March 2004. The federal government reworded its advisory urging children and women of child-bearing age to limit their consumption of fish that contain mercury. For the first time, the warning specifically mentioned canned tuna.
The tuna industry’s troubles didn’t stop there.
In June 2004, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed suit against Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea and Del Monte to force the companies to post warnings concerning mercury next to their merchandise or on the cans’ labels.
Not everyone is convinced that negative publicity about mercury is the leading cause of tuna losing favor with consumers. Shifting trends in seafood consumption also could be a factor. More and more consumers are eating farmed shrimp and salmon, which cost significantly less than stocks caught in the wild. Tuna generally are not farm-raised.
â€They are certainly swimming upstream. They’re up against all this other fresh product out there, especially farm-raised salmon and shrimp,†said Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark LLC, a food and beverage marketing firm in Santa Inez, Calif. “When farm-raised salmon costs less than hamburger, you're in trouble if you're selling a canned product that has mercury in it.â€
Until canned tuna was surpassed by shrimp in 2001, it was the favorite seafood among U.S. consumers since sales were first tracked in 1960. In 2003, the latest year for which statistics are available, the average American ate 4 pounds of shrimp annually, compared with 3.4 pounds of canned tuna, according to the National Fisheries Institute, a seafood trade association.
Canned tuna hasn't been able to capitalize on the nation’s growing appetite for seafood. In 2003, consumers ate an average of 16.3 pounds of seafood per year, a record, according to the fisheries institute, which is based in Virginia.
Perhaps the industry’s malaise is because tuna is “a tired product category†that has been losing appeal among consumers for years, said Pirko, the Bevmark analyst.
