Spain has been hit very hard hit by the coronavirus. But the country increased salmon imports at Easter.
“Since a number of countries have introduced restrictions that hit the restaurant segment hard, we see in several markets a turn towards more sales of Norwegian seafood in grocery, and especially as prepackaged and frozen products. If we compare Easter exports with last year’s Easter week (week 16), we see an increase in both salmon and cod exports to processing markets such as Poland and the Netherlands. These are markets that refine the fish into consumer-ready products for sale in the grocery store,” said Paul Aandahl, seafood analyst at the Norwegian Seafood Council, in a market update on Friday morning.
“The EU had a four per cent decline for fresh whole salmon during the Easter week. We see that exports to further markets such as Poland, the Netherlands and Lithuania performed well and exports to individual markets such as Spain, the UK, Germany and Finland increased, while there was a decline in France and Italy,” said Aandahl.
The sales development in Spain is particularly interesting.
“Salmon is the Spaniards favorite fish and we are seeing a shift towards increased home consumption which has by far compensated for the demise of the restaurant market in Spain. Exports of fresh whole salmon to Spain increased by 16 per cent during the Easter week,” said Bjørn Erik Stabell, the Seafood Council’s representative in Spain.
“However, Spain is one of the countries in the world most affected by the coronavirus and one which had has imposed the most severe restrictions on its inhabitants. This, of course, affects all Spaniards who are in their fifth week of “lock down” and an analysis conducted by Kantar TNS shows, among other things, that 85 per cent of Spaniards look negatively at their own economy going forward,” added Stabell.
