When it comes to direct purchasing, the United Kingdom is the fourth largest buyer of Norwegian cod and haddock, behind Portugal, China and Denmark, but when indirect exports are factored in, it is by far the most important consumer market for these whitefish, delegates heard at the 2018 Norwegian-UK Summit.
Sharing new insight on Norwegian seafood trade flows, Ingrid Kristine Pettersen, seafood analyst with the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC), explained that direct exports of cod and haddock from Norway to the United Kingdom amounted to 68,692 metric tons (MT) in 2016, an increase of 9 percent compared with 2015, which while a record volume for the market represented little more than a half of the total Norwegian-caught fish that it actually bought in.
When including the United Kingdom’s imports of Norwegian cod and haddock from the processing hubs of China and Denmark, the total volume that year reached 132,578 MT, which was 33 percent more than in the previous year.
“This meant that one out of every four cod landed in Norway ended up in the U.K. That is a lot,” she said. “And for haddock, one out of every two fish ended up here.”
Adding together all nations’ direct and indirect cod and haddock exports to the United Kingdom as well as its domestic catch, the market represents almost 400,000 MT of whitefish, said Pettersen.
She also highlighted that in 2017, Norway directly exported 130,000 MT of seafood worth NOK 5.3 billion (USD 689.5 million, EUR 553.8 million) to the U.K. market, which represented volume and value decreases of 11 percent and 7 percent respectively, compared with 2016’s record year.
Its cod exports to the market decreased by 24 percent or 15,000 MT with the value down 17 percent to NOK 546 million (USD 71.1 million, EUR 57.1 million). However, there was a record-high haddock export value of NOK 519 million (USD 67.5 million, EUR 54.2 million), up 6 percent on 2016.
Last year, prices for products all went up and this led to decreasing volumes, said Pettersen. While the value achieved by cod reduced, haddock sales were less affected. Consequently, despite an average price increase of 27 percent, it lost only 2 percent in volume.
“What we experienced here was a substitution between cod and haddock – the average price increases of cod and haddock between 2016 and 2017 led to haddock being relatively cheaper than cod."
