Investigation on Consumption of Seafood of Rasht City Population & Finding the Effective Factors on its Demand

To promote and changing the dietary pattern of any population data collection regarding that society is the first priority, therefore, the situation of seafood consumption in Rasht population was studied. The total number of 500 questionnaires were distributed & completed according to Stratified Random Sampling in the year 2013(1392). Cochran's test was used to calculate the samples bulk. The collected data was analyzed by Descriptive Statistics using SPSS soft ware. The seafood consumption once a week had the most frequency (32.75%) and once per month had the least frequency; with the winter having the highest frequency (46.48%) and summer with the least frequency (13.07%). The fresh sea food with 92.25% frequency had the priority among the consumers. Among the cultured fish, the priorities were given to; Rain bow trout, Grass carp, Silver carp and Common carp respectively. Among the sea fish the consumers were given priority to the Caspian Sea rather than the fish captured from the southern sea. The most consumed seafood were fried ones (91.75%). According to 57.25% of interviewed, the expense was the main reason of not consuming seafood. The bad odor and appearance (19.5%); not knowing the seafood as a good ration (16%) and not being familiar with the cooking methods (7.25%), were the reasons for not consuming the seafood. 55.5% of the interviewed believed that price reduction and 28.2% of those believed that media advertisement (77.87% in TV) were the most important reasons for increasing the seafood consumption. Finally the desire of 22.5% interviewed in using seafood were very high; 49.5% high; 24% low and 4.5% no seafood consumption at all.