The Retail Sale and Consumption of Seafood in Melbourne report, funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC), found that while there has been a marked increase in the numbers of Melbournians eating seafood, as in other cities in Australia, more could be done to lift sales in the sector.

Although people in Melbourne ate 8 per cent more fish last year (about 12.5kg per capita) than they did 15 years ago, most of the increase in consumption is at restaurants or at cheaper outlets like fish and chip shops.

In-home consumption rose just 2.3 per cent in this period, according to the report, and has even declined in another coastal city, Perth, where it fell a staggering 27 per cent between 1991 and 1999.

If Melbourne - and Australia as a whole - wants to grow its fresh seafood sales (worth A$272 million at retail last year), it needs to improve consumer confidence, say the authors.

"Price and consumers' lack of confidence in buying and preparing seafood,were the key factors limiting in-home consumption," they write in the report, available on the FRDC website.

This explains why canned fish, especially tuna, now accounts for more than a third of seafood purchases in Melbourne and other large cities.

"Advances in product varieties, packaging and offering greaterconvenience, quality and value have been responsible for the increasing consumption of canned fish noted in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth."

Yet the price of fish does not have to be a barrier if producers can offer added value, claim the authors. They point to the way supermarkets have responded to the smaller number-of-people-per-household and lifestyle changes "by offering quicker easier meal solutions for the increasing number of 'time poor' shoppers".

This has helped double the supermarket sector's share of the fresh trade from 16 per cent to 32 per cent by volume compared with the decline in the fishmongers' share from 65 per cent to 51 per cent.

Ideas for quicker and easier meals with seafood -through in-store promotions or online initiatives - would also help increase consumer confidence and skill in preparing the food, and therefore, consumption, suggests the report.

The seafood industry must also address consumers' perception that frozen seafood is unsatisfactory and promote good practices in the handling, sale and labelling of frozen seafood, especially with the supply of fresh (never frozen) seafood shrinking, it continues

This means making sure that frozen food is not labelled as fresh causing consumers to be disappointed.

Finally, while the health factor is not such a strong driver of sales as previously thought, (taste is still king), the health benefits do appear to appeal to older age groups and more could be made of fish as a low-calorie food, write the authors.

"The increasing community and government interest in the obesity problem in Australia makes it timely to highlight the 'low calorie' or slimming feature of fish flesh and the weight control benefits of more fish in the diet."

Australian fish consumption is lagging countries like Japan and Korea, where people ate on average 67kg and 55kg of fish per head respectively in 2002, according to FAO figures cited by the report.

In Australia, consumption is around 22kg, also below that of Malaysia, Portugal, Norway, Thailand and France.