United Kingdom seafood sales are expected to rise in 2016, as the country’s economy improves and consumers continue to seek healthy foods. Hot-button issues will continue to be social responsibility and human rights in the supply chain, along with transparency in the supply chain.
Restaurant traffic grew one percent for the third quarter ending September, 2015, according to CREST, and experts expect that trend to continue. “The U.K. economy is performing well, so people are spending more on out-of-home eating and this is set to continue to grow in 2016,” said Julia Brooks, market insight analyst for Seafish. Plus, full-service restaurants, which serve a large amount of seafood, are the fastest-growing sector at 1.6 percent in traffic growth as of September.
Overall retail seafood sales are also improving as the volume decline has slowed to -1.6 percent as of 7 November, 2015, compared to the same time period last year, according to Nielsen ScanTrack. Plus, chilled seafood sales grew 1.1 percent for the year as of 7 November. “Chilled has continued to outperform the other sectors,” Brooks said. Even though frozen seafood sales are still lower than last year, falling 1.2 percent, the category is driving sales volume in stores.
Meanwhile, social responsibility and human rights in the food chain will be hottest seafood issue in 2016, “as NGOs and the media continue to bang the drum and make consumers more aware of the situation”, a Seafish spokesperson told SeafoodSource. “It won’t just be Thailand that they focus on either. The industry will need to think about social transparency in the supply chain in the same way that they ensure the seafood they buy is environmentally sustainable, and how they can demonstrate they are doing all the necessary checks.”
Already, the U.K. seafood industry has taken positive steps on the issue. “The key is collaboration with everybody involved in the seafood industry as well as governments and NGOs to ensure consumers feel assured that something is being done,” the spokesperson said.
Other top trends include:
- Some seafood prices are likely to rise, but others should fall. Recent quota increases for cod and haddock may mean lower prices in 2016, according to Brooks. However, demand from emerging economies like China, Asia and South America, along with energy and production costs, could drive up the cost of the most popular imported species such as prawns and tuna, Brooks said.
- As the economy improves, there will be increased consumer interest in health and provenance, or where seafood hails from. “New labeling regulations came in to effect in the EU at the end of 2014, which gives consumers even more information about where the food they are eating comes from. For fish, this means things like where and when it was caught, which gives the seafood industry transparency about what they are sourcing,” a Seafish spokesperson said.
