FMI – The Food Industry Association released its seventh annual Power of Seafood report on 17 March at the 2025 Seafood Expo North America.
The most recent edition of the report highlighted that seafood continues to struggle to find solid footing at U.S. retail post-Covid.
According to the report, in 2024, the category was able to maintain the loyalty of frequent seafood shoppers – or those who consume seafood at least two times per week – but struggled to hold onto occasional buyers – or those who consume seafood anywhere from once a month to once a week.
The percentage of frequent seafood shoppers comprising total grocery consumers in the U.S. increased from 30 percent to 32 percent year over year in 2024 and has increased even greater from the 25 percent of shoppers who said they were frequent seafood shoppers in 2019.
Conversely, shoppers who consider themselves to be occasional seafood consumers dropped from 34 percent to 31 percent year over year in 2024 and have remained pretty much stagnant for the past five years, according to FMI’s report.
“Food inflation impacted this [latter] cohort last year, who are now having to buy ground beef or turkey or picking other items to get into the center of their plate to meet their budget,” FMI Vice President of Fresh Foods Rick Stein told SeafoodSource.
Fresh seafood particularly wrestled with headwinds in 2024, according to the report.
Citing data from research firm Circana, the latest Power of Seafood report said U.S. consumers bought USD 8.5 billion (EUR 7.9 billion) worth of fresh seafood last year, which was down 2.6 percent. Fresh sales by volume were also down 1.9 percent, making it the only seafood category that suffered sales dips by both value and volume.
The report attributed the poor performance of fresh seafood to lower prices for key species such as salmon and shrimp. Although lower prices might entice shoppers to buy, seafood is still considered expensive and a luxury, according to the report, which found 79 percent of shoppers view seafood as expensive and 66 percent view it as a luxury or an indulgence.
Therefore, some consumers, especially occasional ones, were scared off of fresh seafood purchases due to their perceptions about its price, but at the same time, the ones who made purchases did so at a lower price point.
“If I’m a millennial with children, I’m not far enough into my career where I’m into my heaviest income years. I have other expenses to consider, such as my housing, car, electricity, childcare, etc. All of these things are piling on, and they are going, ‘Where am I going to put my food dollars?’ That’s why I think they were less occasional last year,” Stein said.
Besides prices, consumers may also be turning away from fresh seafood to limit food waste.
“Consumers are very prudent and practical about what they’re putting into their baskets; they’re worried about food waste, especially as every dollar they’re spending on food is more and more valuable,” FMI Vice President of Research and Insights Steve Markenson said.
The increasing market share of online shopping might also be hurting fresh seafood sales, as it is a category of food consumers especially like to see and buy in person.
“Food is very complex. It’s not as easy as seeing and buying a T-shirt or a hat online, which you can return very easily. That’s different with [fresh] food,” Markenson said. “However, although two-thirds of people shop online, only 10 percent of people solely shop online.”
Nevertheless, the fresh seafood department is likely to remain a priority of retailers for several reasons, not all of which have to do with pure sales statistics.
Jason Pride, the vice president of meat and seafood at West Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A.-based grocery chain Hy-Vee, said that optically, a fresh seafood counter is important to shaping consumer perceptions about a store as a whole.
“If the first thing a customer sees is a not-so-great seafood counter, what does that say about the entire store’s freshness? We focus on that a lot and understand how important that counter is,” he said.
Additionally, though the fresh seafood counter may convince a smaller cohort of shoppers to make purchases than the meat department, these types of shoppers are particularly important for grocery stores to attract and hold onto, according to the report.
Frequent seafood shoppers spend more on groceries, at around USD 225 (EUR 208) per week, than non-seafood shoppers, who spend around USD 158 (EUR 146) per week. When seafood is present in a shopper’s basket, the average spend on a trip to the grocery store is USD 103 (EUR 95), compared to just USD 47 (EUR 43) without seafood in the basket.
In order for fresh seafood’s performance to improve, the department needs to get creative, whether through stressing the health of products, running promotions jointly with meat offerings, having knowledgeable staff who can guide shoppers on recipe ideas, and emphasizing product convenience.
“Little things like ‘right-on-the-grill’ stickers right out there on display is great for consumers. In the end, it’s about the value play and making it super simple for consumers,” Pride said.
Convenience is where frozen seafood has taken advantage, maybe even at the expense of fresh, Stein said.
“Frozen is value-added, so a lot of it is marinated, seasoned, and has cooking instructions on it … and on the supplier side, the quality you can get in frozen has dramatically improved. It’s winning at the expense of fresh a little bit,” he said.
In 2024, U.S. consumers bought USD 8.1 billion (EUR 7.5 billion) worth of frozen seafood. Though that marked a 2.6 percent decline by value, sales by volume in the category rose 1.4 percent.
Stein said that frozen has several benefits fresh seafood lacks and is distinctly attractive to those consumers looking to limit food waste.
“Consumers are saying, “I don’t know when I’m going to eat it, but I trust it,’” he said.
Because of this reason, shelf-stable seafood similarly saw gains in 2024, according to the report. The category sold USD 3.3 billion (EUR 3.05 billion) worth of seafood, which was an increase of 1.9 percent, while sales by volume rose 2.6 percent.
Overall, seafood sales in 2024 amounted to USD 23.4 billion (EUR 21.6 billion), which was down 1.2 percent, according to the report. Sales by volume rose 1 percent.
Salmon brought in the most sales by species in 2024, totaling USD 5.2 billion (EUR 4.8 billion) across categories, while shrimp sales came next and totaled nearly USD 5 billion (EUR 4.6 billion). Tuna saw gains in sales by value, rising 1.9 percent to USD 2.6 billion (EUR 2.4 billion) in sales, and by volume, rising 2.7 percent year over year.
Sales of crab and lobster took big dips in 2024.
Crab sales by value dropped 9.3 percent by value to USD 1.5 billion (EUR 1.4 billion) and 4.5 percent by volume. Lobster sales took an even larger tumble, according to the report, dropping 10.1 percent by value to USD 450 million (EUR 416 million) and 17.1 percent by volume.
“I know the last couple years have not been the most wonderful in the seafood world in terms of sales, but I think it’s important to take a step back and look at how far we’ve come over the past five years,” Markenson said.
