Interview with Alexander Wever

In which aspects is fish consumption more sustainable than meat consumption?

Compared to almost all other animal proteins, such as beef, pork, sheep or poultry, seafood almost always has a much better carbon footprint; this applies to both wild-caught fish and farmed products from aquaculture. The feed conversion rate of fish is also much better than that of “land creatures”. For some species, a ratio of almost 1:1 is obtained today, i.e., for one kg of feed, one kg of weight gain is achieved.

At the same time, most feed mixtures today also consist only to a small extent of fish products such as fish oil and fish meal. In addition, the consumption of seafood is of course also extremely tasty and healthy; keyword omega-3 fatty acids, high protein content, very good digestibility and much more. Incidentally, of the seafood products available in Germany, the vast majority (over 80%) is caught sustainably, in the sense that only as much is taken as will naturally grow back again. All this is done under scientific supervision.

Are you confident that nudges can be successfully implemented in your industry?

Yes. When you talk to consumers, they almost always know that fish is delicious and very healthy, and that they should eat more fish. Obstacles to this are often the availability of good fish products and the confidence in one’s own preparation skills.

And that’s where nudges can help, of course, by boosting self-confidence (“I too can prepare fish; it’s much easier than you think”) on the one hand, and reminding people of the health and climate/sustainability aspects in a nice, non-instructive way on the other.

What do you hope to accomplish as a partner of this year’s “NudgeNight”? Especially related to the group you supervise and their theme of “fish”?

That we might be able to convince one or two people to switch from steak and sausage to salmon or shrimp and experience for themselves how easy and delicious it actually is.

I personally hope for an interesting exchange with the students and visitors of the Nudgenight; maybe we can break down some fears and do some educational work, because not everything you see and read on Netflix or the Internet reflects the reality.

The work with my group has been a lot of fun in any case and has also set one or the other nudge in me to leave existing paths and to think a few things anew. Thank you very much, see you at the “NudgeNight”.