The value achieved by seafood sales in U.K. retail grew in the first-quarter of this year but the rate of growth has been slowing since January, while the volume and number of units sold have both declined this year, said the U.K. Seafish Authority.
These trends are evidenced in Seafish’s latest grocery data, which finds sales of seafood in retail (not including discount grocers) for in-home consumption exceeded GBP 3.1 billion (USD 3.9 billion, EUR 3.5 billion) for the 12 months to 25 March 2017, which represented an increase of 0.7 percent. In volume terms, sales equated to 328,004 metric tons (MT) of products and less than 1.2 million unit sales, which were down 0.8 percent and 0.5 percent year-on-year respectively.
The figures also indicate that chilled seafood – retail’s dominant category – experienced a growth in sales value of 2.2 percent with a total for the 12-month period in excess of GBP 2 billion (USD 2.5 billion, EUR 2.3 billion), with consumers buying more of these products (volume and units) than they were a year previously and paying slightly more for them. In volume terms, chilled sales amounted to 153,893 MT or 630,007 unit sales, with an average price across the category of GBP 13.15 (USD 16.70, EUR 14.96) per kg or GBP 3.21 (USD 4.08, EUR 3.65) per unit. However, the authority highlighted that the latest growth rates seen in chilled are slower than they were in December.
At the same time, the value of the frozen seafood category increased by 0.9 percent to GBP 694.8 million (USD 882.2 million, EUR 790.2 million), but ambient seafood sales declined by 6.1 percent to GBP 421 million (USD 534.6 million, EUR 478.8 million). The volumes and units sold in frozen were down 0.4 percent and 0.9 percent respectively, and in ambient they declined by 6.6 percent and 4.5 percent.
Seafish said the frozen sector’s decline was due to falling purchasing frequency, compounded by shoppers buying less per trip. But they did pay more for each kilo of fish that they bought and more households had been shopping the category.
Meanwhile, deflation is driving the decline of the ambient category, along with falling shopping volumes and purchase frequency. There were, though, more households buying ambient seafood than in the previous 12 months, it said.
In value terms, chilled sales accounted for 64.4 percent of the U.K. retail market, frozen had 22.1 percent and the share held by ambient fell to 13.4 percent.
In terms of species sold across all categories, the U.K. retail market was led by salmon with total sales of GBP 873.4 million (USD 1.1 billion, EUR 993.2 million), down 0.8 percent year-on-year, based on a volume of 56,701 MT (down 1.8 percent) and unit sales of 246.5 million (down 2 percent). Salmon was followed by cod and tuna with sales values of GBP 384 million (USD 487.6 million, EUR 436.6 million) and GBP 313.5 million (USD 398.1 million, EUR 356.5 million) respectively, although only cod showed any up turn in performance.
With 22.1 percent of the total sales value, Tesco was the country’s leading seafood retailer, followed by Sainsbury’s with 15.6 percent and Morrisons with 9.7 percent. However, Aldi with 9.2 percent, Lidl (6.8 percent), Waitrose (7.2 percent), Marks & Spencer (M&S – 7.7 percent) and Iceland (4.2 percent) all overtraded in seafood – accounting for larger seafood market shares than they had in groceries overall.
