Continuing the strong sales trend seen in 2016, the value and volume of warmwater shrimp sold in U.K. retail continued to increase in the first-quarter of 2017. Indeed, the product has shown the most growth of all seafood sold in the channel over the past year.
According to the latest Nielsen ScanTrack data supplied by the U.K. Seafish Authority, total warmwater shrimp sales for the 52 weeks ending 25 March 2017 amounted to GBP 266.4 million (USD 341.3 million, EUR 304.9 million), up 9.4 percent. The volume bought during this period increased 13.5 percent to 18,588 metric tons (MT) and the number of units sold climbed 12.7 percent to 83.2 million. This performance was despite a 3.2 percent increase in the average price – to GBP 15.11 (USD 18.46, EUR 17.36) per kg.
By comparison, sales of salmon – the retail channel’s No. 1 product – amounted to GBP 873.4 million (USD 1.1 billion, EUR 999.7 million), based on a volume of 56,701 MT, which represented decreases of 0.8 percent and 1.8 percent respectively.
Declines were also seen in the coldwater shrimp category with the total sales value for the 12 months down 2.1 percent to GBP 175.5 million (USD 224.8 million, EUR 200.9 million) and the volume sold declining 5.8 percent to 13,531 MT and the number of units sold falling 3.7 percent to 61.5 million. There was, however, a 4 percent in the average price paid for coldwater shrimp – amounting to GBP 12.99 (USD 16.64, EUR 14.87) per kg.
According to Seafish, total sales of seafood in retail for in-home consumption surpassed GBP 3.1 billion (USD 3.9 billion, EUR 3.5 billion) for the aforementioned 12-month period, which represented an increase of 0.7 percent. In volume terms, sales equated to 328,004 MT of products and less than 1.2 billion unit sales, which were down 0.8 percent and 0.5 percent year-on-year respectively.
