As sea bream production in European Union member-states has fallen over the last decade, a surge in production in Turkey has managed to more than counter the declines.
The volume of farmed gilthead sea bream produced across E.U. member states has fallen by 6 percent over the last decade, a new analysis by the European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA) has found, but Turkish harvests have grown by 170 percent over the same period to take the combined supply from aquaculture to more than 168,600 metric tons (MT) in 2019.
According to its recently published study on the species, the E.U.-27 produced 91,964 MT of gilthead seabream in 2019, while Turkey supplied markets with 76,680 MT. These volumes accounted for 40 percent and 34 percent of total global production, respectively.
Greece is by far the leading producer in the E.U., accounting for 55,500 MT, or 58 percent, of E.U. production in 2019. The bloc’s other major sea bream-farming countries that year were Spain, Italy, Croatia, and Cyprus.
The E.U. imported EUR 157.7 million (USD 178.1 million) worth of the fish in 2019, with Turkish volumes accounting for 94 percent of the total value.
In 2020, the bloc exported 8,425 MT of bream, valued at EUR 47 million (USD 53.1 million), mainly to Israel, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates.
Within the same year, the intra-E.U. trade amounted to EUR 270 million (USD 305 million), with almost all the fish exported in fresh formats. The main importers from other member states were Italy, Portugal and France, spending more than EUR 40 million (USD 45.2 million) each.
In volume terms, EUMOFA estimated the E.U.-27’s total gilthead sea bream consumption was 193,792 MT.
The observatory also established that aquaculture accounted for 97 percent of the total global production of gilthead seabream, or 228,576 MT, in 2019. This was 68 percent more than in 2010. Other major producers included Egypt (29,994 MT in 2019) and Tunisia (18,463 MT), representing 13 percent and 8 percent of world production, respectively.
Including a wild catch of 8,258 MT, its data further determined that the total global production of gilthead seabream reached 236,834 MT in 2019, which was 64 percent more than at the start of that decade.
Photo courtesy of Aerial-motion/Shutter
