The total value achieved by seafood sales in U.K. retail increased last year but the volume and number of units sold in the channel declined, new figures have revealed.
According to the latest Nielsen ScanTrack data supplied by the U.K. Seafish Authority, overall sales (not including the discount chains) increased by 3.7 percent in value to more than GBP 3.2 billion (USD 4.5 billion, EUR 3.6 billion) for the 52 weeks ending 2 December 2017. In volume terms, this equated to 319,202 metric tons (MT) of products and less than 1.2 million unit sales, which were both down 3 percent year-on-year.
The figures also found that chilled seafood – retail’s dominant category – experienced a growth in sales value of 4 percent reaching almost GBP 2.1 billion (USD 2.9 billion, EUR 2.4 billion) for the 12-month period. Crucially, though, consumers bought less of these products (volume and units) than they did a year previously and paid a lot more for them. In volume terms, chilled sales amounted to 151,225 MT or 615,291 unit sales, with an average price across the category of GBP 13.83 (USD 19.36, EUR 15.75) per kg or GBP 3.40 (USD 4.76, EUR 3.87) per unit.
At the same time, the value of the frozen seafood category increased by 4.7 percent to GBP 723.1 million (USD 1 billion, EUR 823.4 million), and ambient seafood sales nudged upward by 0.6 percent to GBP 427.6 million (USD 598.3 million, EUR 486.9 million). The volumes and units sold in frozen were down 0.6 percent and up 0.1 percent respectively, and in ambient they declined by 9.5 percent and 7 percent.
Chilled sales accounted for 64.5 percent of the U.K. retail market, frozen had 22.3 percent and the share held by ambient fell to 13.2 percent.
In terms of the species sold across all categories, the U.K. retail market was led by salmon with total sales of GBP 909.8 million (USD 1.3 billion, EUR 1 billion), up 4.4 percent year-on-year, based on a volume of 52,245 MT (down 9.7 percent) and unit sales of almost 228.9 million (down 9 percent). It was followed by cod and tuna with sales values of GBP 401.7 million (USD 562.1 million, EUR 457.4 million) and GBP 323 million (USD 452 million, EUR 367.8 million) respectively, although only cod showed any increase in volume – rising 1.3 percent to 48,179 MT.
The price per kg of these three species increased by 15.6 percent, 3.9 percent and 13.4 percent respectively.
Fourth-placed warmwater shrimp showed the best all round growth over the 12 months with its value rising 3.5 percent to GBP 270.1 million (USD 378.1 million, EUR 307.5 million), and the volume (18,600 MT) and number of units sold (83.5 million) representing increases of 3.2 percent and 3 percent respectively. The data confirmed that the average price of this product only increased by a modest 0.3 percent per kg to GBP 14.52 (USD 20.32, EUR 16.53). Indeed, this was the lowest price increase seen among the top 16 seafood species sold in U.K. retail.
With 23.1 percent of the total sales value, Tesco was the country’s leading seafood retailer, followed by Sainsbury’s with 15.2 percent and Morrisons with 9.6 percent. Aldi with 9.3 percent showed the most growth year-on-year.
