OUR RESEARCH
ECONOMIC OUTLOOK SURVEY 2026
The 2026 Economic Outlook Report delivers a comprehensive, data-driven view of how fishermen, processors, and direct-to-consumer seafood businesses are navigating today’s economic environment. Produced by Positively Groundfish and based on a longitudinal survey of industry leaders, the report examines expectations around revenue, costs, labor, investment, regulation, and market demand, tracking how sentiment has evolved over time.
New in 2026, the report introduces the West Coast Groundfish Industry Economic Outlook Index: a single, composite number that distills hundreds of survey responses into a clear, comparable measure of overall industry confidence. The index reveals an industry shifting from last year’s optimism toward cautious stability, reflecting rising costs, uneven consumer demand, infrastructure limitations, and regulatory pressure while maintaining strong confidence in the long-term importance of groundfish. With detailed year-over-year analysis, insights by participant group, and qualitative perspectives on regulatory change, the 2026 Outlook offers essential context for seafood businesses, policymakers, researchers, and coastal communities.
SEAFOOD HEALTHFULNESS SURVEY
This report details the results of our street-style survey of members of the public in Denver, CO, exploring their attitudes, perceptions and understanding of seafood’s healthfulness and how that translates into seafood consumption. This survey sheds some light on how consumers understand and frame “healthy” for themselves, and how they weigh the complex and often opposing information. Moreover, the results of this survey can provide guidance about where to focus marketing efforts to promote the healthfulness of seafood – both in terms of consumer groups to target as well as core messages. It identifies knowledge gaps, hindering attitudes and their susceptibility to efforts designed to encourage higher consumption of seafood.
SEAFOOD COUNTER STAFF SURVEY
This study examines the seafood purchasing process from the perspective of the people behind the counter, as well as their personal experience with white fish species, with particular focus given to West Coast groundfish. Seafood counter staff or fishmongers hold a unique position within the seafood supply chain. Their direct interaction with shoppers at the moment of purchase makes them one of the most influential and important stakeholders in the entire seafood system. Their recommendations may indeed hold more sway over purchase decisions than expensive advertising campaigns. There’s a clear opportunity to better understand seafood counter staff and recruit them to become advocates for lesser-known and underutilized seafood.
CHEFS’ SEAFOOD CHOICES SURVEY
Here we present the results of a pilot survey of chefs, primarily based on the United States West Coast. It examines chefs’ decision-making processes about seafood items in general, and their experience and preference for white fish species, and West Coast groundfish in particular. These insights will help map the path to getting these sustainable but underutilized species back on American menus. Chefs hold a unique and exceedingly important position within the seafood supply chain. Not only are chefs the key purchase decision-makers in the foodservice sector, which accounts for the vast majority of West Coast groundfish sales. But they are also influencers and tastemakers, that have the power to inspire their guests to try new seafood items, and spark a change in Americans’ eating habits.