Salmon price takes a new hit as European processors reduce activity

High supplies in a quiet market.

The seasonal fall in salmon prices, which began last week, continues today.

“The fall continues. Few customers and a lot of harvesting. It’s summer quiet. Difficult to find customers,” said an exporter to SalmonBusiness.

“The prices can stay low for a long time. There are a lot of fish in the sea. The logistics, especially air freight, are not quite up and running. Containers are not straight forward either. And there is a lot of [covid-19] infection, especially in Asia.”[factbox]

Read also: The drop in salmon prices was not unexpected

There are plenty of small fish in the market, not least due to the harvesting of ISA fish in northern Norway. That sends the average price down to EUR 5 – for the first time this year. Several exporters have also traded smaller fish, under four kilos, below that.

“Under 50 kroner (EUR 4.9). I’ve traded leftovers of 49 kroner (EUR 4.8),” said a trader. He added that he has not bought other weight classes, but can buy 4-5 kg ​​at 50 kroner.

“There’s a lot of fish coming, I hear. Panic harvesting. They’ve got a huge amount of fish all of them. This whole month will be tough,” said an importer.

A seller at a fish farming company rejects that the prices of 3-4 and 4-5 kilos of salmon go below NOK 50 (EUR 4.9).

“49 and 50 kroner is not real at all. That is not where the customers in the world are,” he said.

“We have sold a little at 52-53 kroner (EUR 5.1-5.2) at 3-4 kg, 55 kroner (EUR 5.4) at 4-5 kg and 5-6 kg at 58 kroner (EUR 5.7). 6+ at 73 kroner (EUR 7.2). And then we hear there are some exporters that are lower than that.”

“We are holding back sales because we believe in better prices into next week. We think there will be an adjustment next week due to the fact that there has been a turn of the month this week,” he explained and referred to the so-called MAB (Maximum Allowed Biomass) harvesting.

“We sell on Monday and a little Tuesday. We will take the rest next week,” he added.

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