Findus France this week announced double-digit price hikes for both wild and farmed frozen fish, corresponding with soaring costs for raw materials.
The company said the average price for its frozen fish range, which includes breaded and cooked products, will rise 15 percent from the beginning of 2011.
“Fewer and fewer wild fish has fed the price rise,” explained Matthieu Lambeaux, managing director of Findus France. Atlantic cod prices, for example, have increased 21 percent in the past year, while coley prices have soared 87 percent.
The strain on prices is not just restricted to wild stocks — a major drop in Chilean salmon production has driven up prices for farmed Atlantic salmon by a massive 60 percent in one year.
“The ecological reality explains the price rises; it is absolutely necessary and essential that together the actors take this into account and that we must communicate this,” Lambeaux told France’s BFM TV.
He added that the price hikes will be passed on to retailers who may or may not pass the increase on to the consumer.
In 2002, Findus France launched an effort to push sustainability upstream, committing to move toward 100 percent sustainable sourcing. By 2007, the firm had established the 10 principles that now govern their sourcing policy and are integrated into its business model.
In an interview with SeafoodSource earlier this year, Matthieu Lambeaux said France Findus has a 30 percent market share of eco-label Marine Stewardship Council — 55 percent in the UK, 70 percent in Norway and 45 percent in Sweden.
All Supply & Trade stories >