While Germany has never been one the EU’s leading seafood markets, German shoppers are steadily buying more fish for at-home consumption, with the discounter stores increasingly shaping the market, finds new data from the European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA).
Overall, the German market bought 1,164,000 metric tons (MT) of fisheries and aquaculture products in 2016, corresponding to a per capita consumption of 14.2 kg, which remains well short of the EU average of 25.1 kg. The main species consumed are salmon, Alaska pollock, herring, tuna, rainbow trout and cod. Most of the German market is supplied by imports, with 53 percent coming from EU member states and 47 percent from non-EU countries such as Norway, China, the United States and Vietnam.
Some 65 percent of all seafood consumed in Germany is eaten at home, with the total household expenditure on these products amounting to EUR 3.8 billion (USD 4.7 billion) in 2016, which was 2.4 percent higher than a year previously and 15.2 percent more than in 2012.
However, EUMOFA points out that the general market stability between 2012 and 2016 masks contrasting trends within product categories: While smoked, canned and marinated products remained stable, fresh product sales increased by more than 31 percent or 16,200 MT, and frozen fish purchases declined by 12,300 MT.
“This evolution is mainly due to the development of fresh sales in the discounter segment,” it said.
Collectively, the discounters – including Aldi, Lidl and Netto – accounted for a 32.9 percent share of the total food grocery market in 2016, and with their total seafood sales exceeding EUR 1.5 billion (USD 1.9 billion), they covered more than 40 percent of the household market.
Not surprisingly, the lowest average retail price of fishery and aquaculture products are seen in the discounter stores (EUR 7.63, USD 9.43 per kg), with supermarkets, hypermarkets and fishmongers at EUR 9.91 (USD 12.25), EUR 8.59 (USD 10.62) and EUR 14.52 (USD 17.95) per kg respectively. And yet EUMOFA’s figures find that the discounters’ average price increased the most over the 2012-2016 period at 18.5 percent.
Discounters are now the largest sales channel in Germany for all categories of seafood products, except fresh, where they follow supermarkets and hypermarkets. But in recent years, discounters’ fresh sales have increased, with their market share rising from 10 percent in 2012 to 25 percent in 2014 and 30 percent in 2016 at the expense of supermarkets and fishmongers, whose market shares fell from 38 percent and 29 percent respectively in 2012 to 35 percent and 18 percent in 2016.
Starting in 2013-2014, they introduced fresh fish in modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) to their shelves, enabling them to achieved better margins with fresh than with frozen, while also allowing them to emphasize their commitment to quality and to develop the image of a healthy alternative channel, explained EUMOFA.
While the discounters are not necessarily selling big volumes in every store, they do have many stores (16,054 in 2016), it said. At the same time, their fresh range usually includes no more than five products (salmon fillets, rainbow trout, saithe fillets, cod fillets and mussels), while the fresh fish counters of large supermarkets may have up to 200 different products and fishmongers usually have 20-30 species.
