@article{fad5e5573f784645b67854884db9ab9b,
title = "Sea urchin: From plague to market opportunity",
abstract = "The coast line of the Canary Islands (Spain) has suffered from a plague of Diadema antillarum (sea urchin) over the last decades. This has attracted the attention of local authorities since it is becoming a serious environmental problem. We set out to analyse the potential market for sea urchin meat in this region, where this species is not subject to commercial exploitation and it is relatively unknown. The paper uses data from a sample of volunteers who were interviewed before and after tasting different dishes cooked with sea urchin. We applied discrete choice models considering that answers before and after experiencing this food belonged to different types of data; this is a mixed data approach in the state of practice. Our main conclusion is that there is indeed a market niche for having specialised restaurants serving sea urchin as a delicacy food.",
keywords = "Discrete choice models, Efficient experimental design, Food choices, Mixed data analysis, Sea urchin meat",
author = "Grisol{\'i}a, {Jos{\'e} M.} and Francisco L{\'o}pez and Ort{\'u}zar, {Juan de Dios}",
note = "Funding Information: The Spanish Ministry of the Environment and the Canary Islands Government financed a project (DIADEMAR 1 1 ) the objective of which was controlling this plague via its transformation into a fishery resource. The viability of this species as a resource depends on the possibility of exporting it or consuming it in the local market. Although export markets for sea urchin are currently well-known and developed, there is much work to do regarding the local market. As there is no tradition of fishing or eating sea urchins in the Canary Islands, we lack information about the value that potential consumers could place on this resource or why they would consider sea urchin as a food option if it was offered in a restaurant. Funding Information: This work was supported by the 2008 National R + D + i Programme of the Spanish Ministry of Environment and Rural and Marine Environment (Project 055/RN08/02.1) and by the Canary Islands Government. Thanks are also due to FONDECYT (Project 1100483), to the Millennium Institute on Complex Engineering Systems (ICM: P-05-004-F; CONICYT: FBO16) and to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for supporting our research. Finally, we would like to thank John Rose and Danny Campbell for their help and two anonymous referees for some useful comments that allowed us considerably to improve the paper.",
year = "2012",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1016/j.foodqual.2012.01.004",
language = "English",
volume = "25",
pages = "46--56",
journal = "Food Quality and Preference",
issn = "0950-3293",
publisher = "Elsevier Ltd.",
number = "1",
}