The value of Chile’s exports of salmon and trout during the first 10 months of 2020 totaled USD 3.81 billion (EUR 3.21 billion), falling 17 percent from the same period of 2019 as a result of the health and economic crisis caused by COVID-19 and its resulting price reductions due to lower demand in the hotel and restaurant channel.
According to information obtained by SeafoodSource from the Chilean Salmon Council, 603,319 metric tons (MT) of salmon were exported through October 2020, 2.3 percent more than the 589,595 MT of salmon exported during the same period in 2019. At the same time, salmon and trout exports for the third quarter of 2020 totaled USD 865 million (EUR 729 million), dropping 23.2 percent year-over-year, according to information from the Chilean Salmon Council’s first-ever quarterly report on salmon exports, generated from official information coming from the National Customs Service (SNA by its acronym in Spanish) and the Central Bank. On monthly terms in 2020, August, September, and October export values were down 29 percent, 24.5 percent, and 26.7 percent, respectively.
“Despite the fact that salmon prices have remained very low, the exported quantities of salmon have grown so far this year,” which shows that demand remains high for the product, the executive director of the Salmon Council Executive Director Joanna Davidovich said in a release. Davidovich, who took over her position in July, forecasted positive medium-term prospects due to a growing world population and its increasing interest in healthier foods, coupled with the eventual recovery of hotel and restaurant sales as the health crisis is overcome, in addition to the new distribution channels that have been added this year including online and retail sales.
Other findings in the Chilean Salmon Council report include:
- When breaking down Chile’s 2019 exports of goods by category, 48 percent or USD 33.6 billion (EUR 28.3 billion), corresponded to copper exports, followed by food exports of nearly USD 10 billion (EUR 8.4 billion), which includes salmon and trout exports for USD 5.1 billion (EUR 4.3 billion).
- Chile is the second largest producer of salmonids in the world after Norway, accounting for 25 percent of world production.
- The growth of salmon and trout exports in recent years has been greater than that of total exports and that of the rest of non-mining goods, with the relative weighting of salmon exports practically doubling in the last 10 years from 6.9 percent in 2010 to 14.1 percent of exports of non-copper goods in 2019.
- The main destination markets for Chilean salmon are the US, Brazil, Japan, Russia, and China, which comprise 82 percent of exports.
Formed in May this year, the Chilean Salmon Council is an association that brings together four salmon-producing companies: AquaChile, Cermaq, Mowi and Salmones Aysén, which together represent nearly 50 percent of Chilean salmon production.
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