Global Sourcing and U.S. Seafood Processors : A Discriminant Analysis

Despite its massive size, little research regarding the global seafood industry exists from a marketing perspective. In this study, differences between processors who use international or global sourcing and processors who use domestic sourcing are investigated. The results indicate that few significant differences between the two groups exist with regard to sources of seafood for processing. Only the use of two sources of seafood differed significantly: Domestic processors obtain a larger percentage of seafood for processing using vertical integration (their own fishing fleet) than do processors using international sourcing, and processors using international sourcing purchase a higher percentage of their seafood for processing from brokers agents than do processors who source domestically. In addition, processors using international sourcing were significantly larger in terms of gross sales and number of employees than are processors who use domestic sourcing. Finally, the results of the stepwise discriminant analysis indicate that the percent of seafood purchased for processing from brokers/agents, gross sales and years in business are the three variables that accurately discriminate between the two groups