The average price of seafood sold in the U.K. retail channel increased by 5.8 percent over the past 12 months, but the volume of products going into shopping baskets has continued to follow a clear downward trend, finds the latest Nielsen ScanTrack data supplied by the U.K. Seafish Authority.
Shoppers paid an average GBP 9.58 (USD 12.49, EUR 10.75) per kg for seafood in the 52 weeks ending on 16 June 2018. Despite the total volume sold falling by 1.6 percent to 397,830 metric tons (MT), the higher prices paid led to a total sales value in excess of GBP 3.8 billion (USD 5 billion, EUR 4.3 billion), up 4.1 percent.
Seafish’s figures also find that chilled seafood achieved a 3.3 percent growth in sales value, reaching close to GBP 2.4 billion (USD 3.1 billion, EUR 2.7 billion) for the 12-month period. However, the volume of these products bought by shoppers fell by 1.4 percent year-on-year to 178,305 MT, with the average price up 4.8 percent to GBP 13.27 (USD 17.30, EUR 14.89) per kg.
At the same time, the value of the frozen seafood category increased by 5.6 percent to almost GBP 910 million (USD 1.2 billion, EUR 1 billion), and ambient seafood sales grew by 5 percent to GBP 534.5 million (USD 697 million, EUR 599.9 million). The volume of seafood sold in frozen was up 0.4 percent, while in ambient it declined by 5 percent.
The average prices paid for frozen and ambient products climbed by 5.2 percent and 10.4 percent respectively to GBP 6.69 (USD 8.72, EUR 7.51) and GBP 6.40 (USD 8.35, EUR 7.18) per kg.
In value terms, chilled, frozen and ambient sales accounted for 62.1 percent, 23.9 percent and 14 percent of the U.K. retail market, respectively.
With regard to the species sold across all categories, the U.K. retail market was led by salmon with total sales approaching GBP 1.1 billion (USD 1.4 billion, EUR 1.2 billion), up 3.6 percent year-on-year, and a volume of 62,190 MT (down 8.5 percent). Cod and tuna followed with sales values of GBP 483.5 million (USD 630.7 million, 542.7 million) and GBP 400.6 million (USD 522.6 million, EUR 449.7 million) respectively.
The price per kg for these three species increased by 13.2 percent, 5.8 percent and 13.1 percent respectively.
With 22.9 percent of the total sales value, Tesco continued to be the country’s leading seafood retailer, followed by Sainsbury’s with 15 percent and Aldi with 9.9 percent, although Aldi was the only one of the three to grow its market share. Indeed the discount chain showed the most growth of all the main seafood retailers in the market.
