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NORWAY is becoming an increasingly important source of cod and haddock to the UK, although Iceland remains the largest supplier of these two species, a Grimsby trade workshop in Grimsby was told yesterday.
Imports of Norwegian whole fillets have increased substantially – up by 68 per cent in 2010 while shipments of cod fillets were up by 28 per cent and by 35 per cent in value, reflecting the ever rising price of fish. Haddock exports from Norway increased by eight per cent in 2010 and by over 10 per cent in value.
The figures were outlined at a workshop organised by Seafish and the Humber Trade Corridor Group to discuss some of the latest seafood export data and the impact it has on the Humber Seafood industry. It was attended by members from a number of leading fish processing companies.
Seafish market analyst Richard Watson told the meeting that Seafish now had a significant amount of seafood trade related information on its website which was available to the industry, with details breakdowns on volume, value, countries of origin and information on many different species.
He said the seafood sales in the UK during 2010 were worth £5.84 billion a year out of a total food spend pf £110.9 billion. That was an overall increase of 3.4 per cent.
Of that total around £3-billion was taken by the food service sector (including restaurants etc) and £2.8 billion by the retail sector.
Cod imports from Iceland last year were worth £2.23 billion, but volumes were down on the 2009 figure and there was a switch from whole fish to fillets. On the plus side, Mr Watson said Iceland’s cod stocks were in good shape and an increase in quota was widely expected next year. He also revealed that Norway had been offsetting some of the shortfall for both cod and haddock and this trend was likely to continue.
Mr Watson said there was good news on seafood exports from the UK, with shipments up by 14 per cent last year.Exports of salmon, some of its Scottish, to the United States increased by 44 per cent over the period, partly due to the salmon disease crisis in Chile.
But he cautioned that the Chile salmon industry was now getting back on track and that was having a significant impact in lower prices. That trend was likely to continue in to 2012.
Mr Watson said the global seafood industry was currently in a state of flux, with new markets like China, Russia, Brazil and Mexico emerging which presented new opportunities for UK seafood processors.
There was also evidence that China was no longer a cheap processing centre as wages and costs in that country arose. “On the plus side China has a growing middle class who want to buy fish from the west.”
Simon Dwyer, chairman of the Humber Trade Corridor and who helped to organise the workshop, said the Grimsby Border Inspection Post area (which also includes the port of Immingham) now handled 55 per cent of UK seafood – and that included fish from Iceland and Norway.
He said the Trade Corridor was working hard to increase that figure and he looked forward to the construction of a new border post in the next couple of years which would help that effort.
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