No deep price falls in July.
There is a heat wave in southern Europe. Experience has shown that shopping for salmon is not very high on the agenda. Buyers’ credit limits are close to the pain point. Soon it will be the holiday period. The processing plants take summer leave.
Along the North Sea basin, the rain has been pouring down for weeks. Perfect for salmon. In northern Norway, sea temperatures are relatively high. It feeds well in the cages. The growth is impeccable.
Writing mid-July, it used to come now.
The seasonal fall in salmon prices.
Ready for harvest
We have seen the accelerated harvest of small fish for several weeks. As a function of increased summer feeding, the biomass will quickly grow ready for harvest. Soon the supply of fish will exceed the demand. At least for those buyers who are not in the premium segment.
The salmon price has fluctuated between NOK 90 (€8.8) and NOK 120 (€11.7) since the end of March. It is historically quite high. It is not a natural price.
The higher they are, the heavier they fall. When the price drop comes, there is no reason why there should be a few kroner. All empirical evidence suggests it.
Future price
But what does the market say about the price going forward?
Fish Pool’s forward price is the obvious thing to look at. The sum of buyers and sellers on the Bergen fish exchange indicates a future price of NOK 79.85 (€7.8) for August. This means a fall of between NOK 10 (€1) and NOK 15 (€1.5) from the price level for the current week. In September and October, the price will tick further down, to NOK 76 (€7.4), the forward curve signals.
We will receive the first trail notification next Friday. Then SalmonBusiness, in its habit, reports the spot price for salmon for the coming week.
