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vision of the future development of carrageenan seaweed farming and the formulation of more concrete and evident-based policy recommendations. Some of the gaps are
highlighted as follows.
6.1 Carrageenan market
The demand for carrageenan seaweeds is derived from the carrageenan market. The demand for carrageenan is expected to continue growing because of increasing demand
for processed food, driven primarily by population and economic growth in developing countries. Scientific and technological advances could also tend to broaden the uses of
carrageenan as food additives and other ingredients. However, quantitatively, what will the global demand for carrageenan be in the future?
Much information on the global carrageenan market has been provided by the literature including McHugh 2003, Panlibuton, Porse and Nadela 2007, Neish
2008a, and Bixler and Porse 2011. Although data from different sources may not be completely consistent, there are some general ideas about how much carrageenan
has been produced by what countries and how much carrageenan has been used in which products. However, in order to estimate the future demand for carrageenan, it
would be necessary to have more detailed information on how much of what kind of carrageenan products is used by what countries in which products. Such information
has not been readily available.
Another related issue is the carrageenans own-price elasticity of demand i.e. the sensitivity of carrageenan demand to a change in its price. A common perception is
that the food industry, with generally thin profit margins, tends to be very sensitive to an increase in the price of carrageenan McHugh, 2006; Bixler and Porse, 2011.
However, there is not much information to quantify how sensitive it is.
As carrageenan may only account for a small portion of the cost of an end product, a change in its price may cause a relatively small change in the total cost and, hence, have a
limited impact on its demand, especially when carrageenan is an irreplaceable ingredient. Indeed, as carrageenan may not only improve the texture of a pre-cooked meat product
but also increase its yield Bixler and Porse, 2011, the real cost of carrageenan under this situation would be the difference between its price and that of the product.
Further study should be conducted to provide more and improved information on the status and trends of the carrageenan market, including the geographic
distribution of carrageenan production and production capacity, the market segments of carrageenan products i.e. the use of carrageenan in meat, dairy, water gel and other
products, and the geographic distribution of carrageenan demand across countries and products. On the basis of such information, analyses should be conducted to provide
more reliable estimates of carrageenan demand and, hence, the derived demand for carrageenan seaweeds in the future. The estimation would shed light on the potential
of carrageenan seaweed farming in the future, which is important information for both policy decision-making and sector management.
6.2 Carrageenan processing industry and carrageenan seaweed market
