Even though U.K. consumers saw the retail price of warmwater shrimp steadily climb throughout 2017, they continued to buy more products – a trend that has prevailed for the past two years – with chilled sales outperforming the overall seafood market.
According to the latest Nielsen ScanTrack data supplied by the U.K. Seafish Authority, total shrimp sales for the 52 weeks ending 2 December 2017 decreased slightly in volume to 31,817 metric tons (MT) with the value rising less than 1 percent to GBP 442.7 million (USD 618.2 million, EUR 498.7 million). However, sales of warmwater shrimp increased 3.2 percent in volume to 18,600 MT and 3.5 percent in value to GBP 270.1 million (USD 377.1 million, EUR 304.3 million).
This increase offset the further decline of coldwater shrimp sales over the same 12 months. This product fell by 5 percent in volume to 13,217 MT and 3.3 percent in value to GBP 172.6 million (USD 241 million, EUR 194.4 million).
By comparison, total seafood sales (all products and formats) in U.K. retail increased 3.7 percent in value to GBP 3.2 billion (USD 4.5 billion, EUR 3.6 billion), but the volume sold decreased by 3 percent to 321,202 MT.
Seafish’s figures find that the average price of warmwater shrimp increased by 0.3 percent year-on-year to GBP 14.52 (USD 20.27, EUR 16.36) per kg, while coldwater shrimp prices jumped 1.7 percent to GBP 13.06 (USD 18.24, EUR 14.71) per kg.
Some GBP 315.5 million (USD 440.5 million, EUR 355.4 million) worth of warmwater and coldwater shrimp (combined) were sold in the chilled retail category during the 12-month period, an increase of 0.6 percent year-on-year. However, with the value and volume of coldwater shrimp sales falling by 5.1 percent and 7 percent respectively, this growth was entirely driven by the increase in sales of chilled warmwater shrimp – up 4.5 percent in value to GBP 193.6 million (USD 270.3 million, EUR 218.1 million), and 6.8 percent in volume to 12,316 MT.
In terms of the number of units sold, chilled warmwater shrimp sales totaled 61.2 million (up 5.6 percent), while coldwater shrimp unit sales in the category fell 3.2 percent to 43.8 million.
Combined frozen shrimp sales amounted to GBP 128.1 million (USD 178.8 million, EUR 144.3 million), up 1.2 percent but the volume sold dropped 4.2 percent to 38.7 million.
Warmwater shrimp is currently the fourth highest grossing seafood product in U.K. retail, behind salmon, cod and tuna. But according to the new data it was the only one of the four to see any growth in unit sales over the 12-month period, with salmon and tuna experiencing significant declines off the back of sharp price increases.
