Online sales of salmon boosted under pandemic

Huge internet platforms as Amazon are hiring more staff, to be able to supply the growing demand for home consumption right now. The seafood industry is too experiencing a boost on e-commerce. 

On the seafood side of the internet market many suppliers and processors report to SalmonBusiness that they are too experiencing a growth in sales online. One of these processors is the Danish salmon smoker Polar Salmon Hjerting Laks.

“It’s no surprise that e-commerce is doing so well. It is no exception for salmon products. Some of our customers are reporting to us, that they are selling more through e-commerce. We just got a big order from a German e-commerce supermarket, who have ordered exclusive products, that we would normally not sell in these quantities outside of the peak season,” says Christoph Kjærgaard.

Polar Salmon Hjerting Laks sells smoked Norwegian salmon distributed into 100 different taste variations and smoked wild Alaskan salmon, which is mainly sold to Italy. The order from Germany for e-commerce is on 500 pieces of a special carving of salmon. The salmon smoker on the West Coast of Denmark has experienced more sales of products over the internet in both Denmark and Europe.

Read also: Boosted online sale of seafood in South Korea

Like the rest of the industry the company is suffering from the removed HORECA market, hospitality sector, with a loss of 40 per cent of the business, and have had to switch over to only produce for the retail market and the demand for sales online.

Read also: “Buying my brother out, who had been my partner for 25 years was a huge challenge. I risked putting everything on the line.”

Christoph Kjærgaard hopes the Horeca market will start up in May again to fill out the lost gap, when more European markets open up.

“I definitely expect wholefood sales to start in May. But I certainly don’t expect it to be on the same level as normal. The restaurants and stores that do open up again, will experience a great demand, but there will also be places, that do not open up at all, because they did not make it through this crisis,” he explains.

Christoph Kjærgaard is expecting a very different summer to come in regards to sale and estimates it will take a long time before the market is back to normal.

Polar Salmon Hjerting Salmon reported a result of EUR 2.3 million in 2018. 2019 results have not been presented yet.