The value and volume of warmwater shrimp products sold in U.K. retail for at-home consumption continued to follow the strong increasing sales trend seen over the past two years, outperforming the overall seafood market.
According to the latest Nielsen ScanTrack data supplied by the U.K. Seafish Authority, total shrimp sales increased in volume and value to 32,005 metric tons (MT) and GBP 443.1 million (USD 579.3 million, EUR 498.9 million) for the 52 weeks ending 7 October 2017, representing increases of 1 percent and 1.4 percent respectively. While the overall growth is relatively modest, sales of warmwater shrimp climbed 6.3 percent in volume to 18,728 MT and 4.7 percent in value to GBP 269.6 million (USD 352.5 million, EUR 303.6 million).
Conversely, the volume of coldwater shrimp sold in U.K. retail over the same 12 months fell by 5.7 percent in volume to 13,277 MT and 3.3 percent in value to GBP 173.6 million (USD 226.9 million, EUR 195.5 million).
By comparison, total seafood sales in U.K. retail increased 3.2 percent in value to GBP 3.2 billion (USD 4.2 billion, EUR 3.6 billion), but the volume sold decreased by 2.4 percent to 321,142 MT.
Seafish’s figures find that the average price of warmwater shrimp fell by 1.6 percent year-on-year to GBP 14.39 (USD 18.81, EUR 16.20) per kg, while coldwater shrimp prices increased 2.6 percent to GBP 13.07 (USD 17.09, EUR 14.72) per kg.
More than GBP 315.1 million (USD 412 million, EUR 354.8 million) worth of warmwater and coldwater shrimp (combined) were sold in the chilled retail category during the 12-month period, an increase of 1.4 percent year-on-year. Rising by the same margin, frozen sales amounting to GBP 127.9 million (USD 167.2 million, EUR 144 million), but and ambient sales fell by 34.3 percent to just GBP 62,000 (USD 81,073, EUR 69,815).
