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© 2016, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.Purpose: Value Chain Analysis (VCA) is established as a diagnostic tool. The purpose of this study is to extend existing applications and develop an iterative and relational method. to facilitate the application of VCA to agri-food chains as a strategic process rather than a diagnostic tool. Design/methodology/approach: Using a multiple case study design, the new approach to VCA was applied to four Australian prawn fisheries. These fisheries varied in size, location, management structures and marketing arrangements and allowed the general applicability of the approach to be explored. Findings: The application of the revised VCA revealed the importance of undertaking a strategic approach, with the outcome for all fisheries being a greater understanding of their consumers and an enhanced realisation of commercial opportunities. Two fisheries completed the revised VCA, and the findings show that a relational approach is crucial in creating value. In addition, it was shown that formalised structures and the informal behaviours of the value chain members have a strong positive impact on the relationship process. Research limitations/implications: The research furthers the value chain literature and contributes an iterative approach to the application of VCA. The research also shows that obtaining improvements is not achievable for all chains, and, if the entire chain is not engaged with the process, the value of the results will be compromised. Further research is needed to confirm the validity of findings in other food industries. Originality/value: The relational approach is an original contribution to the area of VCA research and provides industry with a blueprint for creating successful value chains. Specifically, the areas of implementation and evaluation make an original contribution to the theoretical and practical knowledge of value chains.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the potential benefits of value chain analysis (VCA) improvement projects by evaluating their effectiveness for all chain members. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses an action research approach to extend VCA methodology by implementing an improvement project developed through the VCA process, and the subsequent evaluation of this project using a combination of techniques. Findings – The paper addressed a key research gap around the evaluation of improvement projects and has shown that the implementation of VCA, both as a guiding framework for developing interventions and a basis for evaluating their effectiveness, can provide significant benefits to all industry stakeholders. Research limitations/implications – The research focussed on evaluating the outcomes of a single project within an industry case study. While the diversity in different industry structures and the range of improvement projects possible makes it difficult to generalise the findings, the methodology and evaluation options make a valuable practical and theoretical contribution. Practical implications – The case study highlights the advantages of improvement projects guided by VCA and offers a variety of evaluation options for both private and public sector VCA practitioners. Originality/value – This study is one of the very few to evaluate the implementation of activities identified during the diagnostic phase of an agribusiness VCA.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the key characteristics of business-to-business relationships in the early stages of the relationship that will influence the successful creation of value chains. Identification of these characteristics will provide a decision-making tool for continuing the effective development of the value chain process. Design/methodology/approach – Key characteristics necessary to develop strong relationships were identified from the literature. These characteristics will assist the relationship to evolve into a long-standing mature relationship. An expert panel evaluated four value chain analysis (VCA) case studies against these characteristics in order to identify patterns in relationships that could explain the varied performance of these cases. Findings – In total, 15 relational characteristics were identified that must be present in the engagement stage before initiating the next step in the VCA process. An assessment of the activities associated with pre-relationships and early relationships within the value chain provide a strong indication of the chains ability to conduct successful VCA.Research limitations/implications – This research furthers the understanding of value chains and adds an important and novel contribution of relationship characteristics to the early stages of relationship development within value chains. Originality/value – The application of relationship development to the engagement of value chains is an extension to the VCA literature. Relationships are a proven foundation component of successful value chains, and yet relationship development research from business-to-business marketing has not been well incorporated into the value chain literature. The framework proposed in this paper facilitates an assessment on the level of chain engagement and readiness to take the next step in the value chain process, thus making a valuable practical contribution.

The food service sector is a significant sector of the food industry and yet little research has considered how and why chefs make purchasing decisions. This article explores how and why chefs make purchasing decisions for seafood to provide a basis from which the various stakeholders involved in seafood, fishers, farmers, and wholesalers can improve their business operations. Interviews were conducted with 68 chefs from three major cities in Australia. Results indicate that chefs purchase from multiple suppliers, with key drivers being consistency of quality and supply. Suppliers act as double gatekeepers, with little information going from chefs to producers and vice versa. Based on the findings, strategies are posited for both producers and wholesalers to better serve the food service sector.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how small businesses may deploy a formalised Stage-Gate approach to new product development (NPD). The original Stage-Gate framework was modified to better suit a small business B2B environment in the seafood industry, and was subsequently applied to a small vertically-integrated crab catching, processing and marketing business.Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a case study methodology. The method used at each stage of the Stage-Gate framework, as well as the time and location details, the people and skills involved, and the evaluative criteria applied for NPD are outlined and discussed; and subsequently synthesized in a modified framework.Findings – The modified Stage-Gate approach was shown to be an effective NPD method, allowing for 92 initial product concepts to be narrowed down to three commercially viable and acceptable products, over a period of less than 11 months. Cost and time were minimised by the four-day ideation process. Furthermore, repeated evaluation of the sensory and market acceptability resulted in strengthened confidence in market attractiveness, while ensuring that appearance, portion size and packaging were based on expert market opinion. Moreover, this approach was successfully completed at less than 25% of the cost of the previous unsuccessful NPD undertaken by the firm.Originality/value – This study advances our understanding of how small businesses may use a formal NPD process to increase the success rate of new products, through development of a modified Stage-Gate approach.

This article investigates 4 key areas of supply chain management to identify opportunities to create value for Australian farmed barramundi. These key areas are product attributes, material flow, information flow, and relationships. This exploratory study forms the first stage of a value chain mapping study. Based on data gathered from 13 in-depth interviews, 7 with farmers and 6 with wholesalers/retailers, a preliminary map of the value chain for Australian farmed barramundi was developed. From a producer perspective, 3 key issues emerged: lack of collaboration, inconsistency of product quality, and lack of knowledge of what consumers value. Although wholesalers/retailers identify product consistency as a key issue, they further identify product dumping and the growth of imports as areas of major concern. These findings laid the foundation for strategy development at both the individual and industry level. The insights from this case highlight the value of chain analyses as a diagnostic tool for strategy development.

In Australia, oysters are perceived as luxury products or are reserved for special occasions, making their consumption infrequent. Point of sale (POS) strategies can encourage consumers to increase purchase frequency. This paper reports the results of a field trial conducted for the Australian oyster industry to increase oyster purchase frequency. Five non-monetary POS strategies were trialled over 16 weeks in seven specialty seafood stores. While issues with store POS strategy compliance made evaluation difficult, sales increased by 15-20%; the most effective strategy was in-store sampling. Management and staff commitment to the POS campaign positively impacted results.

The economic, social and environmental benefits of doing business sustainably are now well established, with many industries fully embracing and integrating sustainable practices. However, some industries are facing greater challenges and struggling to embrace sustainable practices. For example, the issue of sustainability within the seafood industry is highly topical, with a 2014 Google search on the term “sustainable fish” scoring over 37.4 million hits. Despite a groundswell of discussion and action within the seafood industry, the current literature on seafood sustainability remains emergent. While consumers are the stakeholder group that arguably has the most potential interest, the actions of all other stakeholders within the industry affect choices available to them. Accordingly, this paper reviews the current literature and seeks to identify how each stakeholder defines and seeks to manage the issue of seafood sustainability. Several sources of confusion, ambiguity and conflict in the field (including gaps in current research) are evident. Consumers are either confused or ambivalent about sustainability with respect to seafood and there is a lack of consensus on what sustainability means across the seafood supply chain, with differing perspectives across the various stakeholders involved with the industry including governments, NGOs, the seafood industry itself (producers, processors, and distributors), and consumers. The review provides an understanding of consumers and other stakeholder perspectives with respect to the sustainability of seafood and provides a basis for developing strategies to reduce ambiguity, promote clarity and shared understandings regarding sustainable seafood, and also opportunities to increase knowledge, potentially leading to more sustainably managed seafood supply chains.

The commodification of many food products, combined with increasing market share of supermarkets, has increased the importance of point of sale (POS) strategies in speciality food retailers such as fishmongers. The purpose of this study is to develop strategies to improve the retailing of seafood in fishmongers, specifically oysters, a species which is currently underutilised; as although they are eaten by many consumers, purchase frequency is low. A literature review identifies the key drivers and barriers to oyster consumption and the information consumers want at the POS. Based on these findings, a retailing strategy for oysters is developed and tested in two consumer focus groups. Based on focus group results, revisions are recommended to the retail strategy, importantly including a change in collateral from a production focus to a consumption focus. This study makes a clear contribution to theory and practice by bringing together the existing literature on drivers and barriers and consumer information requirements about oysters to develop and test practical retail strategy concepts.

This paper reports the results of a field trial conducted on behalf of the Australian oyster industry designed to increase oyster consumption through POS and in-store sampling. Oyster consumption is characterised by a base of very light consumers, many of whom do not even eat oysters once a year. POS strategies are an effective retailing strategy to drive behavioural change at POS. Five POS strategies were manipulated in seven speciality seafood stores in Australia. The results show that while in-store sampling is the most effective POS strategy, an integrated POS strategy comprising a range of materials has an added impact of educating staff who can then also assist in the sale process. Management commitment to the POS strategies is critical for successful implementation.

Most consumers have positive attitudes toward seafood and consider it to be an important part of a healthy and balanced diet. However when purchasing seafood, consumers also weigh up various risks which may act as barriers to consumption. In this paper, the findings of an online survey of Australian consumers (. n=. 899) which explored both drivers and barriers to seafood consumption are discussed. The primary focus of this paper is to explore the perceived risks of seafood consumption and how these vary across consumption levels. Perceived risks associated with seafood consumption include functional, social, physical, psychological, and financial risk. With the exceptions of physical and financial risk, perceptions of risk varied across regular, light and very light seafood consumption segments. Lighter fish consumers were more likely to perceive functional risk associated with being less informed and less familiar with fish, experience more difficulties with selecting fish, recognising if fish is fresh, and preparing and serving fish than more regular fish consumers. Regular seafood consumers were less likely than lighter seafood consumers to perceive social risk arising from other members of their household not liking fish. Moreover, regular seafood consumers were less likely to perceive psychological risks associated with unpleasant past experiences or unpleasant sensory qualities, such as not liking the smell of fish and not liking to touch fish. Based on these results strategies for reducing perceived risks as a means of stimulating fish consumption are proposed for further investigation. © 2012 .

This study explores the role and interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic cues when evaluating fish quality and in shaping consumers' attitudes toward fish consumption. A sensory analysis of nine different fish including five variants of barramundi was conducted to determine how consumers evaluated the fish on intrinsic cues. Focus groups were then conducted to explore the impact of extrinsic cues on attitudes and purchase intentions. While the sensory analysis revealed distinct differences between barramundi variants on intrinsic cues (notably taste), the focus groups revealed that, as a brand, barramundi is perceived much more favourably and consistently. Consumers used extrinsic cues, particularly country of origin, as surrogate indicators of quality. Aquaculture producers need to ensure intrinsic product quality and consistency, as while consumers use the extrinsic cue of "Australian grown" as a surrogate indicator of quality, as their familiarity and confidence with seafood grows, this overreliance on extrinsic cues may diminish.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the drivers and barriers to seafood consumption in Australia and to investigate attitudes toward pre-packaged fresh chilled seafood products. Design/methodology/approach: A two-stage study of seafood consumption in Australia was conducted comprising ten focus groups across six states (n=60) and a national online consumer survey (n=1,815). Findings: The main drivers for seafood consumption in Australia are health, taste, convenience, and a desire for diet variety. The main barriers to seafood consumption are price, concerns regarding origin, concerns about freshness, difficulty in evaluating seafood quality, and not liking the taste or texture of fish. The main appeals of pre-packaged fresh chilled seafood products are convenience and ease of preparation, while barriers include price and concerns about origin and freshness. Research limitations/implications: The survey focussed on the main or joint grocery buyers in households and thus may not be representative of the entire Australian population. Practical implications: The findings provide important insights for the Australian seafood industry in developing and delivering seafood offerings that will appeal to Australian consumers and thus stimulate seafood consumption. This knowledge will also assist the Australian Government and health educators to more effectively campaign to encourage increased seafood consumption. Originality/value: While research on antecedents to seafood consumption in Europe has been extensive, research into the drivers and barriers to seafood consumption in Western countries such as Australia and strategies for increasing seafood consumption is less evident.