A modest increase in the prices paid for chilled seafood in the U.K. grocery market over the past year has not been enough to stop the total value of seafood sales falling.
For the 12 months ending 3 January 2015, U.K. seafood sales totaled GBP 3.14 billion (EUR 4.3 billion, USD 4.8 billion), a decrease of 0.4 percent year-on-year, according to the latest Nielsen Scantrack data published by Seafish. The total volume, meanwhile, fell 4.5 percent to 336,000 metric tons (MT).
The overall total would have been slightly worse had it not been for the chilled fish category increasing the value of its sales by 2.8 percent to GBP 1.95 billion (EUR 2.6 billion, USD 3 billion) as a result of a 5 percent increase in average prices — to GBP 12.90 (EUR 17.44, USD 19.73) per kg. In volume terms, chilled sales were down 2.1 percent for the period.
However, within chilled, strong growth was only exhibited by the sushi and seafood with sauce segments, said Nielsen Scantrack.
The biggest drop in sales was seen in the frozen category, which achieved a total value of GBP 697 million (EUR 942.2 million, USD 1.1 billion), down 5.5 percent year-on-year. In volume terms, frozen sales fell 8.4 percent to 111,000 MT.
Ambient seafood sales also continued to decline with the value falling 4.9 percent to GBP 500 million (EUR 675.7 million, USD 764.8 million). The ambient volume decreased by 3.2 percent to 74,000 MT.
