Europe may be governed by a singular union, but it’s far from a singular market, and shrimp producers are working on ways to increase demand for their products by keeping an eye on regional trends across the bloc.
According to statistics shared during this year's Global Shrimp Forum in Utrecht, the Netherlands, the E.U.’s imports of raw shrimp from Asia, Latin America, and Africa have declined so far in 2026 compared to 2025 – a year which saw double-digit growth across all four quarters. However, those declines vary depending on the region of Europe under consideration: Southern Europe has seen a 14 percent drop in imports year over year, while Northwestern Europe’s imports are down just 2 percent.
According to Global Shrimp Forum Director and Co-Founder Willem van der Pijl, if imports stay on the same trajectory in H2 2026 as they did in H1 2026, the E.U. is expected to import around 370,000 metric tons (MT) of shrimp for the year, which would be down from the nearly 400,000 MT the region imported in 2025.
Ananda Roy, a senior industry advisor to Circana, said the shrimp industry needs to consider the separate markets in Europe when creating products.
“A market like France, you need to show the versatility of the product and increase purchase frequency of the product – which there are cooked, head-on, shell-on,” Roy said.
HelloFresh Senior Category Manager Victoria Radford said during the forum that her role has been able to grant a unique perspective on consumer behavior through its meal kit service and on the different markets in Europe. She said top of mind for the company is ensuring the quality of the product they are serving customers is high because seafood often gets fewer chances.
Radford said the company has identified value-added products as an opportunity for penetrating markets, which is being driven from the product innovation teams down through procurement.
“One of the great things about HelloFresh is we are a data company in the sense that we are able to get this direct feedback loop from our customers as soon as a product is on the menu,” Radford said. “That means we’re constantly able to evolve, work, and improve those opportunities within the shrimp category and help that growth.”
Cooke Europe Manager Lars Sievers said there are also opportunities for shrimp to get into more category partnerships with retailers, which enables the company to more directly target the markets those retailers are in. Many retailers in Europe are highly knowledgeable about what is in demand in a particular country or region and can help the companies understand how to respond.
“They can try to help with that, together with the supply chain, and find the right products and the right way forward,” Sievers said.
Radford said HelloFresh has already found much of the same and has had to adapt to the barriers in each market.
“Essentially what we find in Germany is we’re trying to solve the ‘have you tried it’ problem,” Radford said. “By having the recipe, the ingredients, we’re able to give them the confidence, and when we’ve been able to do that, we’ve gotten good customer feedback.”
Markets like France, meanwhile, already know shrimp well and, thus, need a higher-quality product if companies want to garner market share.
“They have an expectation bar,” Radford said.
Taking those into consideration, while also capitalizing on wider trends, is a way to increase shrimp consumption, but the supply chain also needs to be able to deliver quality product consistently, she said.
Roy said in Europe, shrimp is underrepresented in daily diets as the least-consumed protein source and that the numbers show it is “underperforming its potential in terms of innovation,” with the category seeing 29 percent of new product launches in the category but 24 percent of value. That, however, also highlights some of the ways shrimp could become a more consumed protein.
“The reason for that is because there is a lot of very very compelling innovation from some of your non-seafood competitors, particularly in dairy, where there is high-protein, low-fat, indulgent flavors; functional health benefits; and so on,” Roy said. “The ability to talk about health is becoming much more dimensionalized. They’re not just saying healthier, and they’re not just saying high protein. They’re actually being able to demonstrate how this product fits a consumer’s lifestyle.”
Roy said the yogurt industry is a great example, explaining that through innovation and marketing, it has become an item associated with health and is often eaten after exercise.
“This is your competition, rather than just looking at whitefish and seafood as your competition,” he said.
Roy said there are a few strategies that shrimp companies can use to drive more volume and purchase frequency. For volume, it is important to make the product more top of mind, but for purchase frequency, it is essential to highlight it as a healthy protein and target younger consumers who are underrepresented in purchasing habit analysis, he said.
He said framing shrimp as a premium product and emphasizing ingredient sourcing and nutritional profile are also opportunities, but at the core, getting shrimp to the top of mind and giving people a clear view of versatility of the product are both still challenges.
“Taste, health, freshness, convenience, these are some of the potential drivers of sales – especially when you can teach them how easy to prepare shrimp can be,” Roy said.
