France — the home of smoked salmon and the gourmet kitchen — has historically been one of Norway’s most important laks customers (the French still are, they’ve just cut procurements sharply).
France has reduced its procurement of fresh farmed salmon from Norway from 86,700 tonnes to 78,495 t so far this year, new export numbers from Statistics Norway and the Norwegian Seafood Federation show. That’s an 8.8 percent drop.
The cuts in French procurement therefore deviate radically from the global market, where Norway’s collective salmon export is more or less unchanged compared with the same period in 2016. As of the 47th week of 2017, Norway has exported 1,017,803 t of salmon (rounded and gutted), down just 1,000 t from last year.
The biggest buyer of Norwegian salmon, Poland, has also cut imports of Norwegian salmon this year. The Poles — dominated by large distribution outfits Morpol, Seumpol, Limito and Milarex — have so far this year bought 111,503 t of salmon.
That’s a drop of 7,070 t, or 5.9%, over last year.
