Current Situation at the Fish and Seafood Market

The growth of online seafood market and product globalisation have drastically changed the fish and seafood market in the recent years. Now consumers can have fresh and healthy products delivered to their door promptly and for a reasonable price. Producers can find customers online in no time. All of that has influenced the seafood market to a great extent.

Thanks to globalisation the quality of fish products has increased, logistic methods have improved, and, therefore, the majority of producers and fisheries could cut costs of production. It seems that, as the result, the seafood market prices should have dropped down and remained stable. Surprisingly, the market is still heavily volatile, due to regular seasonal price changes in every sector of the seafood market.

Wholesale fish market prices depend heavily on the seasonal catch. T he seasonality of fish can cause a dramatic change in both wholesale and retail prices. As fish stocks migrate throughout the year, the prices change accordingly: during peak catch seasons prices can collapse due to oversupply.

Now we are going to look into the most recent changes in the wholesale fish market prices. According to tridge.com, the biggest price changes in the last month were to be seen in the South Korean fish market. The wholesale prices for Swordfish, Cabezon and Belted Beard Grunt have plummeted: -98.3%, -91.3% and -87.1% respectively. At the same time, we can see a huge growth in the prices for Yellow Drum, Dotted Gizzard Shad and Japanese Anchovy: +1065.1%, +259.5% and +146.5% respectively.

Top products by trade volume are Atlantic Salmon (11.2%), Shrimp (9.8%) and Tuna (4.9%). Global average wholesale price for Atlantic Salmon is $5.3. A global average wholesale price for Common Shrimp is $9.4, which is almost 20% lower, than last month. Global average price for Tuna remains around 15%.