Balancing health benefits and risks: Consumer responses to seafood recalls

Using weekly NielsenIQ data from 2010 to 2022, we examined the effects of seafood recalls on household purchases of recalled brands and their spillover effects on purchases of unrecalled brands of the same species and unrecalled species. We find that recalls reduced purchases of both recalled and unrecalled brands of the affected species, demonstrating negative within-species spillover effects. We also find that households increased purchases of unrecalled species as a substitute, reflecting positive cross-species spillover effects. These impacts were short-lived: direct impacts on recalled brands lasted approximately 4 weeks, while spillover effects on unrecalled products persisted for only about 1 week.