Analysis of the main determinants of away-from-home consumption of fishery and aquaculture products in the EU28

The European Union (EU) is the largest market in nominal terms for fishery and aquaculture products (FAPs), partly due to the away-from-home consumption of these products in restaurants and food outlets. In view of this, it is necessary to identify the main determinants of the away-from-home consumption patterns in order to propose strategies that could increase the consumption of FAPs. Following this, ordered probit models were estimated alongside their marginal effects to identify the most relevant factors determining the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs in the EU28, using a representative sample of 27732 EU residents. We found that those in the highest classes of society are most likely to consume FAPs away-from-home more frequently. Also, the most important reasons for consuming FAPs more frequently away-from-home are that they are less expensive than other foods, taste good, and are healthy and easy to digest. In addition, among the different nationalities, British consumers are more likely to consume FAPs away-from-home. We also found that there is a higher frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs for consumers between the ages of 25 and 54, who do not live in rural areas, who prefer wild-caught and local and marine products, and that are very satisfied with their lives. The study contributes to the literature with the analysis of FAPs away-from-home consumption by using a large representative sample of EU28 consumers. The study is also relevant with respect to the extensive list of determinants that include factors related to the attitudes of respondents to FAPs and socio-demographic characteristics.


Introduction
Fishery and Aquaculture products (FAPs) consumption is an important component of the human diet, as it accounts for around 17% of the intake of animal protein in the global population (FAO, 2018). Consumption of FAPs offers health benefits, due to the presence of high biological value proteins, unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins and minerals (Sidhu, 2003), while it has also been associated with a low risk of heart disease (Zarrazquin et al., 2014). In addition, Maciel et al. (2016Maciel et al. ( , 2019 found that regular fish consumers had a better perception of the quality of life and were more physically active; suggesting that they were healthier people. The average consumption of seafood by European residents is 24,33 kg per capita (European Union, 2018b), which is considerably higher than the 20,3 kg per capita of global consumption (FAO, 2018). This is not surprising given that the European Union (EU) is the largest trader in nominal terms of FAPs in the world (FAO, 2018). Part of the consumption is spent away-from-home, in places such as restaurants and food outlets, where 32% of European residents consume FAPs at least once a month and 11% at least once a week (European Union, 2018a).
Considering that consumers who purchase seafood more regularly are more likely to pay higher prices for seafood than those who purchase them less (Quagrainie, 2006), it is important to better understand the patterns of consumption of FAPs in the EU. According to our best knowledge, besides the numerous studies that analyse the preferences of consumers and frequency of consumption of FAPs, only a small part of them focuses on the identification of particular determinants of away-from-home consumption. The limited number of studies (Almeida et al., 2015;Baptista et al., 2020;Herrmann et al., 1994;Hori et al., 2020) usually involves a particular country, region and/or fish species, and the set of determinants is also limited in number and scope. Thus, the obtained results are not easily generalizable and the value for policies that could involve supranational entities such as the EU is also narrow.
The present investigation analyses the main determinants that explain the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs by European residents using for the first time a heteroscedastic ordered probit model. Ordered Probit models are a proper analytical framework when the responses of a survey are ordinal (Kumar et al., 2008;Thong & Solgaard, 2017). In addition, the heteroscedastic model does not assume that error variances are constant or homoscedastic across observations, and the issue of biased parameter estimates as well as miss-specified standard errors is consistently handled. Our research extends the previous literature in two important aspects: (1) we use a large representative sample of consumers of the EU28, and (2) the list of determinants is very extensive and includes factors related to the attitudes of respondents to seafood and socio-demographic characteristics. We estimate the marginal effects of the different determinants to obtain the key factors that are likely to increase the likelihood of consuming FAPs away-from-home more frequently. The findings provide very important insights that are especially relevant for restaurant owners and the rest of the stakeholders of the supply chain in order to design and implement commercial strategies that enhance the FAPs logistic value. In addition, the results of the marginal effects may also be useful in drawing policy lessons or in guiding the extent of future investigations for researchers and authorities.
The rest of the paper presents the literature review and hypotheses (section 2), the data and methodology used for the analysis (section 3), the results (section 4), the discussion (section 5), and the conclusions (section 6).

Literature review and hypotheses
Higher demand for away-from-home food consumption in recent decades, especially in developed countries, has been attributed to different aspects, such as increased incomes (Binkley, 2006;Gäl et al., 2007;Ham et al., 2004;Ma et al., 2006) and increased pursuit of convenience through time savings (Binkley, 2006;Gäl et al., 2007;Mutlu & Gracia, 2004). Increased participation of women in the labour market has also favoured a tendency to spend more on leisure activities (Binkley, 2006;Gäl et al., 2007;Mutlu & Gracia, 2004). In addition, the growth in urbanization gives families greater access to restaurants that facilitates away-from-home food consumption (Ma et al., 2006;Mutlu & Gracia, 2004). According to Rezende and Avelar (2012), a variety of practices are related to the consumption of food away-from-home, such as the consumption of food products in food-specialized establishments, such as restaurants and snack bars, or in places where food is part of the service offered, such as hotel and in-flight meals, as well as the consumption of non-commercial substitutes, such as family meals.
There is a large number of studies assessing the consumption of fish and seafood. In general, according to Carlucci et al. (2015), the main drivers for fish consumption are the sensory liking (taste, smell and texture) of fish, perceived health benefits and fish-eating habits, while the main barriers are the sensory disliking of fish, health risk concerns, high price perception, lack of convenience, lack of availability of the preferred products, and lack of knowledge in selecting and preparing the product. Moreover, Olsen (2004) argues that the consumption of seafood varies considerably across individuals, families, cultures and countries. In addition, the species consumed may be associated with cultural traditions that are also changing over time (Apostolidis & Stergiou, 2012).
The consumption of FAPs is usually studied in the literature by analysing the choices of consumers or the frequency of consumption. Regarding the determinants of the frequency of consumption of seafood products, different quantitative approaches have been used according to the literature reviewed (see Appendix A). The most common methods used range from basic statistical analysis such as ANOVA or descriptive analysis to multinomial regressions and more sophisticated methods such as Probit and logit models.
The independent variables used for these models are usually related to socioeconomic variables and factors related to consumer attitudes towards seafood. As far as socioeconomic variables are concerned, the studies consulted have shown that there are no absolute trends for this type of attributes, as it depends on the characteristics of the sample within the context of the study or aspects related to the products, such as the species. However, the majority of the investigations indicate that female (Can et al., 2015;Cavaliere et al., 2019;Thong & Solgaard, 2017), elderly people (Herrmann et al., 1994;Murray et al., 2017;Myrland et al., 2000;Thong & Solgaard, 2017), highly educated people (Can et al., 2015;Cavaliere et al., 2019;Islam et al., 2018;Myrland et al., 2000), people with higher incomes (Can et al., 2015;Cavaliere et al., 2019;Herrmann et al., 1994;Lee & Nam, 2019;Thong & Solgaard, 2017;Yousuf et al., 2019) and living with a partner (Cavaliere et al., 2019;Kumar et al., 2008;Thong & Solgaard, 2017), usually have a higher frequency of consumption of different seafood products.
Moreover, other factors are related to the lifestyle of the respondent. It has been found that consumers tend to consume seafood products more frequently when: they are used to eat seafood products (Yousuf et al., 2019); they frequently consumed seafood when they were young (Murray et al., 2017); they engage in regular physical activity (Myrland et al., 2000); and they engage in recreational fishing activities (Herrmann et al., 1994).
As shown in Table 3 (Appendix A), most of the studies analysed the general frequency of consumption, and only a limited number carried out separate analyses for home consumption or away-from-home consumption, or both. This is an important point to consider given that some studies have found that the main determinants of home and away-fromhome FAPs consumption differ (Almeida et al., 2015;Herrmann et al., 1994). In addition, Almeida et al. (2015) concluded that the self-reported frequency of consumption of seafood differs from the frequency of consumption calculated as the sum of the frequency of consumption of seafood on different occasions (at-home or away-from-home, at lunch or dinner), being the self-reported frequency of consumption of around 3 times a week, while the estimated consumption from summing up the various occasions is approximately 5 times a week. The difference might be due to the fact that the respondents could be more accurate when their consumption response is based on occasions, as it might be easier for them to take into account the seafood consumed as a supplement, such as an intake included in a sandwich, rather than just considering the seafood consumed as a main meal dish. The authors, therefore, concluded that it would be better to ask for more detailed information on consumption as the general answer tends to underestimate the frequency of consumption.
Focusing now on the studies that have assessed the frequency of away-from-home consumption separately, Almeida et al. (2015) found that the frequency of at-home consumption was far higher than the frequency of away-from-home consumption. The authors also found that consumers with a higher knowledge of seafood (in terms of the amount of information they know about the characteristics, the preparation and the assessment of the quality of fish and other seafood) had a higher frequency of consumption of seafood and were more interested in information on seafood products. In another study, Hori et al. (2020) found that eco-friendliness was a significant positive reason for the more frequent consumption of seafood away-from-home, while freshness, price, quality and taste and the expiry date were significant reasons for not consuming seafood more frequently away-from-home. The country of origin and food safety were not significantly linked to the frequency of away-from-home consumption.

Attitudinal factors
Attitudinal factors present a general pattern of preference. Several studies have shown that there is a higher frequency of consumption for consumers who: prefer fresh products over other presentations (Almendarez-Hernández et al., 2017;Can et al., 2015;Kumar et al., 2008;Yousuf et al., 2019); have a positive attitude towards seafood products (Kumar et al., 2008;Lee & Nam, 2019); care about eco-labels and the environment (Almendarez-Hernández et al., 2017); care about health issues of the products (Can et al., 2015;Murray et al., 2017;Thong & Solgaard, 2017); and consider important that the seafood products have low calories and fat (Thong & Solgaard, 2017). On the other hand, certain attitudes that favour a lower frequency of consumption of seafood products are: being uncomfortable cooking or preparing seafood (Murray et al., 2017;Thong & Solgaard, 2017); not purchasing wild seafood (Murray et al., 2017); or finding the products with higher prices (Hall & Amberg, 2013;Lee & Nam, 2019;Thong & Solgaard, 2017). Based on the previous findings, we have proposed the following first hypothesis:

H1.
Attitudinal factors towards the characteristics of FAPs are important determinants of the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs.

Psychological factors
Other factors are related to life conditions and life satisfaction. For general fish consumption, Maciel et al. (2016Maciel et al. ( , 2019 found that those who consume fish often had a better perception of the quality of life and were more physically active. They concluded that they were healthier people. As a result, we can establish the following hypothesis: H2. Psychological factors are relevant determinants of the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs.

Sociodemographic and economic factors
Sociodemographic and economic factors are also important determinants of away-from-home consumption. Baptista et al. (2020) found that consumers who were born between 1961 and 1997, who have  The upper-middle class The higher class NA high incomes, postgraduate education and families without children are more likely to eat seafood products in restaurants than to eat them at-home. Herrmann et al. (1994) found that consumers associated with frequent purchases at restaurants are likely to be those with the highest income, white-collar occupations, recreational fishing activities and living in households with children aged 10 or under. They also determined that the attitudinal variables show less correlation with the frequency of purchases at restaurants than with the frequency of at-home consumption. Based on the previous investigations, we have established the following two hypotheses: H3. There are differences in the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs depending on sociodemographic factors.
H4. There are differences in the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs depending on factors that are related to the economic status of consumers.

Data and methodology
We used the Special Eurobarometer survey 2018 (European Union, 2018a) as the main dataset for our study. This dataset has already been used by the study (Cantillo et al., 2020) as it has a lot of potentials to analyse FAPs consumption issues in the EU due to its representativeness. The survey includes a series of questions that analyse the internal market of FAPs in the EU28 and was conducted at the request of the European Commission between June and July 2018. The surveys were conducted face to face in the 28 countries of the EU, using the native language of the country of residence of the individuals. The final sample consisted of 27734 EU residents and the sample description can be found in Table 1, including information on the number of respondents per country and the frequency of the total sample.
In the present study, the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs is the dependent variable, while the independent variables are associated with attitudes about the consumption of FAPs and sociodemographic characteristics of the individuals. The Eurobarometer survey addressed the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs with the following question: "How frequently do you eat fishery or aquaculture products at restaurants and other food outlets (canteens, bars, market stands etc.)?". Respondents must choose only one of the following options: "at least once a week", "at least once a month but less than once a week", "several times a year but less than once a month", "less than once a year", "never" and "don't know". Those who replied with the "don't know" option were insignificant and as a result, not considered in the present investigation. According to the Eurobarometer survey, in the EU, 11% of the respondents reported consuming FAPs away-from-home at least once a week, 21% at least once a month but less than once a week, 28% several times a year but less than once a month, 14% less than once a year and 26% never (European Union, 2018a).
With regard to the independent variables, the attitudes towards the reasons for buying or eating FAPs were measured in the Eurobarometer survey by displaying a list of possible options that allowed respondents to select up to three of them, while the preferences for certain product attributes such as the method of harvesting (farmed vs wild), local preference and sea-product preference were assessed through multiple choice questions with a unique answer.
A description of the independent explanatory variables is provided in Table 2. Variables that were fixed to 0 for the estimation of the model are accompanied by the word 'base' between brackets. The independent variables were organized according to the following broad categories to facilitate the description and discussion of the results: • Category 1: Attitudes towards characteristics of the product • Category 2: Psychological factors related to life conditions and life satisfaction. • Category 3: Sociodemographic factors.

Methodology
The present investigation uses a heteroscedastic ordered probit model to analyse the determinants of away-from-home consumption of FAPs. The ordered probit model approach was selected considering that the responses given by consumers regarding the frequency of awayfrom-home consumption were ordinal (Kumar et al., 2008;Thong & Solgaard, 2017). Probit models have been previously selected as an approach to assess fish consumption behaviour in the investigations of Almendarez-Hernández et al. (2017), Kumar et al. (2008), Lee and Nam (2019), Myrland et al. (2000), Terin (2019) and Thong and Solgaard (2017). We selected the form of a heteroscedastic model, which allows the standard deviation of the error term to vary, offering more trustable and less unbiased results than homoscedastic models.
The model has a utility function that relies on a latent dependent variable Y i , which depends on a linear combination of an independent variable vector X i and a vector parameter θ i , and an error term ε i as shown in equation (1). The vector parameter is to be estimated, while the error term allows obtaining unobserved factors of individual i.
The dependent variable Y i on Equation (1) cannot be observed but can be measured by a set of y i indicators representing the different levels or categories of the frequency of away-from-home consumption, which in our case consist of five different consumption levels (Equation 2).
From this equation, the threshold category parameters (μ 1 , μ 2 , μ 3 , μ 4 ) indicate the points of variation for the level of consumption given a high change in the latent preference and are to be estimated taking into account that μ 1 < μ 2 < μ 3 < μ 4 .
• 1st level -Never: • 3rd level: Several times a year but less than once a month: • 4th level: At least once a month but less than once a week: Moreover, the model assumes that the independent variables (which explain the behaviour of the dependent variable) are a set of socioeconomic characteristics of individuals as well as particular attitudes towards FAPs. The selection criteria for the independent variables were based on our expertise and the literature review (Table 3). We tried to cover all the factors analysed in other studies, with the limitation that the variables were included in the questions answered in the Eurobarometer survey. The model allows estimating the probabilities for each frequency of consumption level according to a variation in the different attributes incorporated.
The heteroscedastic model allows the standard deviation of the error term to vary according to the following equation: is a vector of variables that explain the level of variance and δ is a vector of parameters to be estimated. The parameters are estimated by maximising the log-likelihood function. Moreover, we estimated the marginal effects for the different attributes, which indicate the change in the probability of away-from-home consumption of FAPs for each level of consumption when there is a change in the value of an independent variable.
Among the limitations of the use of traditional ordered probit models, it should be clarified that these models do not account for unobserved heterogeneity and therefore assume that the estimated parameters are considered to be fixed. However, the specification of a simpler model that does not account for unobserved heterogeneity favours the interpretation of the results, which may be more meaningful for policy analysis.

Results
Homoscedastic and heteroscedastic ordered probit models were estimated (see Appendix B for full results). We also estimated the marginal effects on different away-from-home consumption patterns of FAPs. In several cases, the results of the heteroscedastic model indicated that the standard deviations of the factors were significant, suggesting that assuming homoscedasticity could lead to biased results for some of the coefficients of the parameters in the homoscedastic model. In addition, the likelihood ratio test showed that the heteroscedastic model was superior to the homoscedastic, thus the results of the investigation will be based on the outcomes of this superior model.
The marginal effects on the away-from-home consumption of FAPs at least once a week are shown in Fig. 1, while those related to the frequency of consumption at least once a month but less than once a week are shown in Fig. 2. In these figures, the green colour elements are significant drivers of the frequency of consumption, the red elements are significant drawbacks, and the white elements are non-significant factors. The description of the results is organized according to the categories presented in the previous section.

Attitudes towards the main reasons to eat or buy FAPs
We confirmed that attitudes towards the main reasons for eating or buying FAPs are important determinants of the frequency of away-fromhome consumption of FAPs. It was found that the attitude associated with the highest probability to consume FAPs away-from-home more frequently is to consider them as less expensive than other foods, while other important attitudes that increase their consumption is to eat or buy them because they are "easy to digest, healthy, taste good" are products for special occasions or because they contain little fat.
Consumers who consider that one of the main reasons for consuming FAPs is because they are less expensive than other foods, have a higher probability of around 10.5% and 7.9% to consume them at least once a week and at least once a month, respectively. For other reasons, the probability ranges from 1.5% (contain little fat) to 3.9% (easy to digest) for the level of consumption of at least once a week, and from 3.6% (contains little fat) to 6.9% (healthy) for the level of consumption of at least once a month but less than once a week.
Moreover, the preference for marine products over freshwater products, local versus foreign products, and wild-caught versus farmed products are significant drivers of higher consumption rates, for both at least once a week and at least once a month levels of consumption. Among these, the preference for marine products was the most important aspect for both levels of consumption, increasing the likelihood of consumption at least once a week by 2.7% and of at least once a month by 3.2%.

Psychological factors related to life conditions and life satisfaction
Life satisfaction was also a positive driver of higher consumption rates. In fact, those with the highest level of satisfaction had a higher probability of 4.5% of consuming the products at least once a week and of 6.0% of consuming the products at least once a month compared to those individuals who were not at all satisfied with their lives. With regard to life conditions expectations, it was found that those who consider that their life conditions in five years would be the same have a lower probability of around 0.9% of consuming the products at least once a week, compared to those that are in the endpoints (worse or better life conditions); however, those than consider that they will be better, have a higher probability of 1.2% to consume the products at least once a month but less than once a week than those that expect their conditions to be worse.

Sociodemographic factors
The results show that the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs varies between countries, with British consumers having the highest probability of consumption for the at least once a week level and Portuguese consumers for the at least once a month but less than once a week level. Figs. 3 and 4 show the probabilities of eating FAPs at least once a week and at least once a month away-from-home for the countries, respectively, indicating in general terms, that the residents of the countries located on the western part of the EU28 tend to have a higher probability of consuming FAPs away-from-home more frequently than those located in countries on the eastern part of Europe.

Fig. 2.
Marginal effects for the away from home consumption of FAPs. (At least once a month, but not more than once a week).
According to the age, the results show that consumers between 25 and 54 years of age are more likely to consume FAPs away-from-home at least once a week of around 1.6%-1.9%, compared to those between 15 and 24 years; while those over 75 years of age were less likely to consume them at least once a week than the youngest group at around 1.7%. Similar results were found for the consumption level of a least once a month but less than once a week, with residents between 25 and 54 years of age having a higher probability of 1.8%-2.5% to consume FAPs away-from-home compared to the youngest generation, while those older than 55 had a lower probability of consuming FAPs at least once a month but less than once a week than the youngest generation ranging from 0.9% to 6.3%. Furthermore, the results show a tendency of a lower frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs for larger household sizes, while there is a higher frequency of consumption for residents living in cities, towns and suburbs compared to those living in rural areas.

Economic factors
The class of society attribute showed the highest marginal effects and indicated that those in the higher classes have a higher probability to consume FAPS away-from-home more frequently, reaching up to 15.9% for the higher class in the consumption level of at least once a week.
The variable related to the difficulty of paying bills at the end of the month in the last year was not correlated to the frequency of consumption of at least once a week, while for the frequency of consumption of at least once a month, showed a higher frequency of consumption for those with less or no difficulties, compared to those with difficulties most of the time.

The impact of generational differences on away-from-home fish consumption
We found that consumers between 25 and 54 years of age (born between 1964 and 1993) are more likely to consume FAPs away-fromhome. Similar results have been found by Baptista et al. (2020) in Brazil, who have determined that consumers born between 1961 and 1997 are more likely to eat seafood products in restaurants than to eat them at-home. This can be explained by the fact that this group is the largest active labour force, which means that they generally have higher incomes, allowing them to spend more money on leisure activities such as eating at restaurants or food outlets. In addition, since this group also tends to have the busiest schedules, it may be more convenient for them to save time by avoiding cooking at home more regularly. Meanwhile, those over 75 years of age had the lowest probability of consuming FAPs away-from-home more frequently. This may be due to a number of reasons, such as the preference and availability of more time to cook their own meals, as this group of people usually do not work; and it may also be related to dietary restrictions that make it difficult for them to find suitable products that could be consumed away-fromhome. In view of this, the strategy that can be implemented is to highlight the importance of the nutritional and health benefits that FAPs can offer.

Away-from-home fish consumption: a luxury meal or an affordable food choice?
In our results, the largest marginal effects were related to the social class of the residents, indicating that there is a higher frequency of awayfrom-home consumption of FAPs for high-class residents. Similar results were found in the investigations of Baptista et al. (2020) and Herrmann et al. (1994). Both studies found a higher frequency of restaurant purchases of seafood products for consumers with higher incomes. This finding and the fact that those who consider that "FAPs are products for special occasions" are more likely to consume these products more frequently, suggest that seafood could probably be perceived as a luxury food to be eaten away-from-home. However, our findings also indicated that the most important attitude that contributes to consuming more frequently away-from-home FAPs was to consider them to be less expensive than other foods.
This apparent contradiction can be explained considering different aspects. First, it is important to point out that those higher-income consumers usually eat more often in restaurants, regardless of the product they consume, so the higher frequency of consumption for this group may be the result of a higher presence in restaurants. For this reason, it is important that future studies compare the actual propensity of people with higher incomes to choose fish instead of other food products at restaurants. Some investigations have already shown that affluent consumers usually consume more frequently fish than meat products (Cavaliere et al., 2019;Islam et al., 2018), but the results cannot be generalized to the away-from-home context.
It is also important to consider that there is a wide range of prices that can be found in the European restaurants and food outlets, depending on the type of fishery and aquaculture product consumed and the type of restaurant. Products can therefore be cheaper than other foods if cheap species (such as hake, cod, pangasius and tilapia) are considered in affordable restaurants compared to other protein sources, but at the same time products can be considered as luxury if species such as lobster, salmon, bluefin tuna or caviar are consumed in places specialized in high-income segments. In addition, given the heterogeneity of the sample, the discrepancies may be due to different cultural and social factors regarding the status of fish in each country.

The role of health on away-from-home fish consumption
Other important reasons that increase the frequency of away-fromhome consumption of FAPs are to eat or buy them because they are easy to digest, healthy or low-fat products. These attitudes evidence that consumers attach great importance to the health and nutritional benefits of FAPs. This is not surprising given the high recognition of seafood products as healthy and nutritious for benefits such as high content of Omega 3 and low-fat content (Birch & Lawley, 2012;Verbeke, Vermeir, & Brunsø, 2007). Other important nutrients found in FAPs include vitamins A and D3, digestible proteins, and minerals such as iodine and selenium (Ramalho Ribeiro et al., 2019).

The role of products attributes on away-from-home fish consumption
In addition, the findings indicate a higher frequency of away-fromhome consumption of FAPs for consumers who prefer wild-caught to farmed products, local to foreign products and sea to freshwater products. Consumers may obtain indirect information on the harvest method and the origin of the FAPs when they eat in restaurants located near a water body (beach or river) and expect that the products are fresh and wild. For example, consumers may choose restaurants located near a beach or a marine, expecting that their products wild, local and recently caught, because of their proximity to that water source. In this sense, a sort of endogeneity issue might be present in a way that these locations could be indirectly favouring these specific fish attributes in consumers' preferences. The fact that there is a higher frequency of consumption for those who prefer wild-caught products is consistent with many investigations in the literature, in which consumers describe farmed products as being of lower quality and less healthy when compared to wild-caught (Claret et al., 2014;Verbeke, Sioen, et al., 2007). Thus, this finding reaffirms that aquaculture producers, authorities and promoters should continue to work on planned programs to change the negative image that aquaculture products currently have (Bronnmann & Hoffmann, 2018). Moreover, the fact that those who prefer local products have a higher frequency of away-from-home consumption was expected, given that many investigations have found similar results, for reasons such as greater trust in local products or the ethnocentrism of consumers (Luomala, 2007;Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999) or even because of health and food safety issues (Hinkes & Schulze-Ehlers, 2018). Also, the higher frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs for those who prefer sea products to freshwater products, indicates that freshwater producers must encourage trust in their products by promoting the quality of their products through marketing campaigns.

Consumers' psychological factors and their relationship with the away-from-home consumption
According to our results, favourable psychological attitudes such as optimism and positiveness in life satisfaction and future living conditions, contribute to increased away-from-home consumption of FAPs. This can be explained considering that, probably due to their current and future good living conditions, consumers are willing to spend more money on eating food away from home on a more frequent basis. Similar results were found in the investigations of Maciel et al. (2016Maciel et al. ( , 2019 who determined that those who consume fish regularly had a better quality of life perception and were more physically active. However, the literature is very scarce on the relationship between FAPs consumption and quality of life, as only the two studies mentioned assess this issue, and they refer to fish consumption in general, and not particularly to the away-from-home consumption.

Home vs away-from-home consumption
In a similar study, using the same Eurobarometer survey but focusing on at-home consumption, Cantillo et al. (2021) found similar trends in some of the variables, as well as opposite results in others. With regard to similarities, it was found that consumers who prefer wild-caught products, who are very satisfied with their lives, who are part of the higher classes of society and never or rarely have any difficulty paying bills, have a higher frequency of at-home consumption of FAPs. In addition, there is a similar trend towards higher consumption of FAPs at home and away from home for countries located on the western side of Europe. Similarly, as in the present study, Cantillo et al. (2021) found that selecting as important any of the reasons listed for eating or buying the products would result in a higher probability of consuming FAPs more frequently, except for the reason "are products for special occasions", which suggest that FAPs are usually consumed at special occasions that are celebrated away-from-home, rather than at those celebrated at-home, in which they probably preferred other food options. With respect to the opposite results, Cantillo et al. (2021) found that consumers over 55 years of age tend to eat FAPs more frequently at-home, which implies that the generational effect is a relevant factor in distinguishing between groups consuming more at-home or away-from-home. It seems evident that the generational effect might depend on the health and cultural reasons. Older consumers usually have more dietary restrictions that restrict them from getting appropriate seafood at restaurants and food outlets, while they can cook the products the way they need at-home. Moreover, the fact that older people were born is a less globalized world, in which at-home consumption was more frequent when they were younger, could also have an impact on their preference to consume more these products at-home. Furthermore, the results of Cantillo et al. (2021) also differed from the current study with respect to the place of living. They found that those living in cities and large urban areas have a lower frequency of at-home consumption of FAPs. This might be in part explained because consumers living in these areas have better access to restaurants and food outlets, and as a result, they consume FAPs more frequently away-from-home. Similarly, the results for those who live in rural areas can be explained analogously. Finally, another interesting difference to highlight is related to the household size, as Cantillo et al. (2021) found that those living in households with 3 or more people tend to consume FAPs at-home more often, suggesting that FAPs are more regarded as a family meal when eating at home, while in restaurants and food outlets, they are more popular with couples and single consumers.

Conclusions
The findings of this investigation present very important and useful insights for restaurant owners and the rest of the stakeholders of the supply chain who obviously could benefit from an increase in the frequency of away-from-home consumption of FAPs. The information can be used to enhance the marketing campaigns of the products and to look for better strategies that increase the consumption of the products in the EU. In addition, we highlight that the use of a proper representative sample increases the strength and reliability of the results.
We have proved the four hypotheses formulated. For the first hypothesis, we found that certain attitudes that increase the frequency of consumption of FAPs are to consider important the following reasons to buy or eat them: less expensive than other foods, easy to digest, healthy, tasty, low-fat and for special occasions. Also, we found that consumers who prefer wild, local and marine products consume FAPs away-fromhome more frequently, which could be an indirect consequence of choosing a restaurant near a water body, as they expect certain fish characteristics based on the selected location. For the second hypothesis, we found that those who are more satisfied with life and optimistic about future living conditions have a higher probability to consume FAPs more frequently away-from-home. With regard to the third and fourth hypotheses, we determined that consumers between 25 and 54 years of age, who live in smaller households not located in rural areas, belonging to the higher class of society and who have fewer financial difficulties are more likely to consume FAPs away-from-home.
The main limitation of this study is that it is based on a survey that is not specific to the consumption of seafood away-from-home but the consumption of seafood in general. As a result, there may be some lack of precision in the results to represent reality, particularly in the attitudes towards the main reasons for the consumption of seafood, as the valuation and preference for attitudes may vary in the differentiation between home and away-from-home consumption. Additionally, another limitation is that the attitudes assessed in the current study describe only beneficial attributes of fish, and therefore those who eat fish will probably find FAPs in a more positive way. The results of this investigation are therefore limited and restricted to the available data, which is a good starting point but requires improvement for more relevant and accurate results. Future research should consider the design of a specific survey, in which the respondents are advised that all the issues addressed fall within the context of away-from-home consumption.
Future studies should focus on similar analyses for particular species in order to obtain clearer results, especially those species that are important for away-from-home consumption should be further analysed. Also, separate analyses are required for fish species and other categories of seafood. Furthermore, it may be relevant to consider the spatial locations of the respondents, to know whether the low awayfrom-home consumption of FAPs may be due to a lack of specialized seafood restaurants in the area, rather than to consumer preferences. Moreover, future research should also include the spatial location of the consumer, as one possible important driver is how close the consumer lives from a sea coast or a lake.

Author contributions
All of the authors contributed significantly to the research. The contributions according to the CRediT taxonomy are: Javier Cantillo: conceptualization, methodology, modelling, analysis, writing-original draft; Juan Carlos Martin: conceptualization, methodology, analysis, writing-review and editing, validation, supervision; Concepción Román: conceptualization, methodology, analysis, writing-review and editing, validation, supervision.

Ethical review
Not applicable.

Funding
This work is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 766347.

Declaration of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Data availability statement
The data can be publicly accessed at https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13 212. Table 3 presents a review of the main studies which analyse the frequency of consumption of seafood products using a quantitative approach. The table includes the authors, the year of publication, the species analysed, the country or region of application, the methodology, the size of the sample, the context in which the frequency of consumption is studied (general, at-home or away-from-home), the factors considered and the main results. Table 4 presents the complete results of the homoscedastic and heteroscedastic ordered probit models. The values that are in bold letters have a minimum level of significance of 0.05, while those in italics have a minimum level of significance of 0.1. Table 5 presents the results of the marginal effects of the heteroscedastic model on the frequency of consumption at least once a month but less than once a week (y = 4) and at least once a week (y = 5).

Table 3
Investigations that analyse the frequency of consumption using a quantitative approach.   In terms of the frequency of consumption of seafood at-home, quality and taste, freshness, country of origin, ecofriendliness and food safety were significant positive reasons for more frequent consumption of seafood, while the price was a negative reason. The expiry date was not significantly related to the frequency of athome consumption.
As regards the frequency of consumption of seafood away-fromhome, eco-friendliness (continued on next page) Fish was mostly consumed by groups related to restaurant consumers and those characterized by a high level of awareness of the quality and price ratio and freshness of food and a high level of concern for the food and cuisine of other family members.
The average consumption of fish was higher for men, the upper-middle and upper social classes, living in households with fewer family members, and secondary and higher education levels.    H&O: the frequency of consumption is analysed separately by at-home and away-from-home consumption. GC: the frequency of consumption does not differentiate between the at-home and away-from-home consumption.