Even though consumers in the United Kingdom have seen supermarkets charge more for their warmwater shrimp products this year, they have continued to buy more products – a trend that has prevailed for more than two years – with frozen sales outperforming the overall seafood market.
According to the latest Nielsen ScanTrack data supplied by the U.K. Seafish Authority, total shrimp sales in the retail channel for the 52 weeks ending 19 May, 2018, decreased slightly in terms of the number of units sold to less than 144 million, with the value rising less than one percent to GBP 444.1 million (USD 589.8 million, EUR 504.5 million). However, the sales of warmwater shrimp increased by almost one percent to more than 85.5 million units and 1.4 percent in value to GBP 275.5 million (USD 365.9 million, EUR 313 million), consolidating its position as the fourth-highest grossing seafood product in U.K. retail, behind salmon, cod, and tuna.
While U.K. shoppers are buying more warmwater shrimp products, the overall volume that they bought fell by 1.9 percent to 18,612 metric tons (MT), indicating that shrimp product sizes have decreased. Seafish’s figures also find that the price of warmwater shrimp increased by 0.5 percent per unit to GBP 3.22 (USD 4.28, EUR 3.66), equating to an average per-kilogram price of GBP 14.80 (USD 19.66, EUR 16.81), up 3.4 percent.
In terms of product formats, chilled warmwater shrimp sales totaled 61.2 million units (down 0.4 percent), while frozen sales increased by 4.5 percent to 24.4 million.
Meanwhile, coldwater shrimp sales over the same 12 months fell by 3.4 percent to 58.4 million units. Prices for these products increased by 1.8 percent per unit at GBP 2.89 (USD 3.84, EUR 3.28), leading to an average per-kilogram price of GBP 13.09 (USD 17.39, EUR 14.87).
Overall, the average price of seafood sold in the U.K. retail channel has increased by 6.3 percent over the aforementioned 52-week period but the number of actual products sold has continued to decline.
Shoppers paid an average GBP 2.84 (USD 3.73, EUR 3.23) per seafood item, equating to an average price rise of 6.8 percent at GBP 10.39 (USD 13.80, EUR 11.80) per kg.
Total sales neared GBP 3.3 billion (USD 4.4 billion, EUR 3.7 billion), up 3.5 percent, but the total number of units sold fell by 2.6 percent to less than 1.2 billion. In volume terms, this equated to 315,471 MT, down 3.1 percent.
