Salmon prices down on ‘Barcelona effect’

As expected the price of Norwegian fresh salmon fell last week which many observers are putting down to the “Barcelona effect”.

With buyers and senior company officials decamping in large numbers to Spain for the Seafood Expo Global trade show it had been widely predicted that prices would falter – and they did.

According to Statistics Norway, they dropped by 7.4% to NOK 111.63 per kilo in week 17 against NOK 122.88 a week earlier.

However, demand is on the rise, probably due to the now near universal May Day bank holiday. It rose by 7.2% to 17,281 tonnes.

In week 17 last year fresh salmon hit was then an all-time record at NOK 107.75 a kilo while exports were almost 3,000 tonnes lower at 14,245 tonnes. They are also around 25% higher than at the start of the year.

Continuing strong demand from the United States, which is proving to be a boom market for Norwegian seafood, and from European processing countries such as Poland and Denmark are thought to be keeping salmon prices at a constant high level, showing onlymodest week to week fluctuations.

Seafood Council salmon specialist Paul T. Aandahl said this week that much of the salmon processed in Denmark, for example, went onto to other European countries such as Germany which probably compensated for a decline in direct exports to some parts of Europe.

Frozen salmon exports dropped from 390 tonnes to 266 tonnes last week although the price was NOK 8 higher at NOK 103.11 per kilo.