By Atuna
Spanish consumers may not be very well informed about the nutritional value of the day-to-day products they buy in the supermarket, but the have a very positive view on its nutritional ingredients. That is the outcome of a marketing enquiry that the Spanish association of tuna canners Anfaco presented last week on the perception of Spanish consumers on canned tuna. If a price was put on it, buyers did value the nutritional content substantially higher than the real market price. And they were even prepared to put an extra premium on this value, if the real nutritional facts of tuna were revealed to them.
The conclusion of the market investigation as such was not very flattering for Spanish consumers. They generally don’t have much knowledge of the nutritional content of the standard products they put in their shopping basket. As a result there is not much connection between the price they are asked to put on the product based on its nutrition and the real market price. But when it comes to canned tuna, the article that was most consumed of the investigated supermarket products in the inquiry, the confusion has its positive side.
The enquiry, that was presented by Anfaco’s president Juan Vieites in Madrid, showed that tuna despite the lack of knowledge on many nutritional factors, has a very strong image with the consumers. The value for canned tuna that 8 out of 10 Spanish buyers estimated on the basis of the guessed nutritional content was 42 percent higher than the actual market value. Once confronted with the real figures of the (positive) tuna ingredients, the consumers did put another 15 per cent on their estimated value. So at the end of the inquiry, tuna was valued almost two thirds more than its real market value.
According to the investigation tuna was a notable positive exception: in other products from liquid yoghurt to chocolate eggs there was not much relation between the nutritional content given as an answer to questions and the reality. Even with tuna, only 52 percent was able to acknowledge that the Omega 3 fat is an essential ingredient of tuna meat. Remarkable was that the knowledge of tuna ingredients was less developed in the North of Spain, where traditionally much tuna is caught than on the Canary Islands where the best results were registered.
To the limited knowledge of the nutritional content, confusion was added about the characteristics and the possible health benefits of certain nutritional ingredients. Only 44 percent knew the cardiovascular benefits of eating tuna, and only 42 percent knew about tuna’s positive effects on the levels of cholesterol.