It’s been feast or famine in the yellowfin tuna market this year, with the situation going from almost no fish around to a glut that has sent prices down about 50 percent from where they were a few months ago.
“The tuna market is just jumping. Every time I call someone there’s tons of product around. Everybody and their mother is back in the tuna business,” says one buyer for a large foodservice outfit. “There was nothing around and now it’s all over. The price is tumbling literally by the day.”
The buyer was paying less than USD 6 (EUR 4.50) for yellowfin portions in mid-July and between USD 7.75 (EUR 5.81) and USD 7.95 (EUR 5.96) a pound for saku, compared to around USD 7.95 for portions and USD 14 (10.49) for saku a few months ago. Prices for saku, or premium blocks of frozen sashimi-grade tuna, are at their lowest point in a year, he says, adding that reports from boats show there is no shortage of fish in the water.
“For at least the next six to nine months we’re good,” he says, adding he is taking advantage of the glut to play suppliers off of each other to land the best possible deal. “One time you call and the next time you call a competitor and they beat the other guy by a dime. I can make two phone calls, go back and forth and lower my price by 20 cents on two phone calls because I think everyone is almost hung with product.”
Prices have been holding steady the past few weeks, with imported fresh whole fish running from USD 3.25 (EUR 2.44) to USD 7.25 (5.43) a pound, depending on quality and size, and domestic fish going for between USD 3.50 (EUR 2.62) and USD 8 (EUR 5.99). Fresh whole tuna loins, center cut, are running from USD 5.40 (EUR 4.05) to USD 5.75 (EUR 4.31), depending on the size of the fish. Frozen individually vacuum-packed yellowfin loins are selling for USD 5 (EUR 3.75) to USD 5.80 (EUR 4.35) a pound, depending on size.
The head of a seafood department for a medium-sized retail chain says additional supply from the East Coast fleet has helped lower prices, about to where they were at the start of last summer. The buyer has been paying around USD 13 (EUR 9.74) a pound for fresh yellowfin and is charging around USD 18 (EUR 13.49) at the counter, give or take a dollar. He has been running promotions for the fish since mid-May, but expects to slow down a bit in July and August as his customers go on vacation and demand slips a bit.
“We'll scale back some, we won’t put as much emphasis on what goes on in the ad,” he said. “Our customers are high-end, they’re not around for the summer that much, so we’ll have it once or twice the rest of the summer, but for the most part it’s the holidays we really push.”
The foodservice buyer says everybody he talks to has a different reason for why the yellowfin supply increased so suddenly.
“Some said low catch, some said that Asia was buying up all the catch, it was costing importers too much to get it through [U.S. Customs], too much was being rejected so they didn’t want to bother sending it here,” he said. “If you called five people you got five stories. I don’t really have an accurate answer to that question, just speculation.”
