Retail sales of chilled seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) and seabream (Sparus aurata) in the U.K. market have increased dramatically in the last year, according to new figures released by Seafish.
For the 12 months ending 28 March, U.K. retail sold 4,414 metric tons (MT) of seabass, an increase of 22 percent year-on-year. In value terms, these bass sales were worth GBP 16.5 million (EUR 22.8 million; USD 25.7 million), up 32 percent or GBP 4 million (EUR 5.5 million; USD 6.2 million).
In the same period, U.K. shoppers also bought 634 MT of chilled seabream, an increase of 120.5 percent year-on-year. The total value of bream sales was GBP 2.2 million (EUR 3 million; USD 3.4 million), which was 150 percent or GBP 1.3 million (EUR 1.8 million; USD 2 million) more than in the previous year.
Overall, chilled sales in U.K. retail totaled GBP 1.68 billion (EUR 2.32 billion; USD 2.61 billion), an increase of 5.8 percent or GBP 92.3 million (EUR 127.5 million; USD 143.7 million) on the previous year. This value was based on a total sales volume of 581,406 MT, up 4.4 percent.
