A new exhaustive and user-friendly snapshot of the European fisheries and aquaculture industry in 2015 is now online, along with the new and improved EUMOFA website.
The website of the European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA) now has new functions and a new design. The constant interaction with and data input by the EU countries has resulted in a more reliable database, in all 24 official EU languages. EUMOFA is a unique, dynamic and responsive market intelligence tool that produces analyses and reports that focus on five stages of the supply chain, and case studies on price formation in different EU countries.
The EU has proved to be a major seafood consumer in 2015. While consumption has been dropping by 2kg per person per year since 2008, household expenditures on seafood keeps increasing. This means that EU consumers buy less seafood but spend more on it. Consumption is dominated by captured fish, which accounts for three quarters of the total. Tuna, salmon and cod remain the most popular products (2kg per capita respectively).
The EU is the largest trader of fishery and aquaculture products in the world in terms of value. Values of EU imports have been increasing steadily since 2009, at an average rate of 6% per year, reaching €21bn in 2014. Europe imports at least four times more seafood than meat in value.
The main supplier is still Norway (one quarter of the total) largely selling fresh salmon and cod. Norway's exports to the EU have increased by 70% since 2009.
EU exports, amounting to €4.3bn and two million tonnes in 2014, have gained 70% in value as compared to five years ago.
Retail prices of fish and seafood have been on a steady increase for the last few years, and growing faster than meat and other food. However the pace has been slowing down since 2012.
The EU fish market 2015 report can be found here.
