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Thank you for joining us for The Tradex Foods "3-Minute Market Insight"
The Monday morning “pulse report” for seafood purchasers.
Some Fast Facts to start this week’s insight: The Canadian Food Inspection Agency recently
announced a new strategy to combat short-weight seafood in the Canadian marketplace.
CFIA will receive weekly notices from the Fisheries Council of Canada of foreign exports
that are offering Canadian importers shipments that are less than 100 percent net weight.
This Short-Weight Import Alert System is the first of its’ kind in Canada and is an important
step forward in eliminating fraud in the seafood industry.
In news this week… Global Atlantic Salmon supply is expected
to top 1.5 million tons this year. This is much higher than anticipated and even
tops 2008 production levels that were obtained prior to the ISA virus outbreak in Chile.
The increased supply can be attributed to Chilean Salmon which is recovering more quickly
than expected. Chilean Salmon has historically dominated
the US market but in May 2010 they held just a 29 percent share.
Between June and December Chile reclaimed a large piece of the pie that had been lost
to Norwegian companies and in December 2010 their market share reached 51 percent.
So why is Chile recovering faster than predicted? First the ISA virus is under control and second
Chilean Salmon are demonstrating high biological productivity.
Moving forward don’t expect Norwegians to back down easily fierce competition between
Norwegian and Chilean producers can be expected in the latter half of the year which may push
down US market prices for farmed Salmon. In other news high Tilapia prices are likely
to stick around throughout 2011. China who produces the majority of global
Tilapia is unlikely to increase output this year.
Farmland is difficult to obtain and as global demand rises the only way to increase output
is by farming more fish per acre. Unfortunately this requires heavy investments
in raw materials for which prices are skyrocketing and squeezing the margins of many farmers.
Raw material prices are high right now due to increased feed costs disease issues and
a rising Chinese currency. And so while prices are expected to stabilize
at a higher level this year demand will remain strong.
Tilapia is still a cheap alternative to Salmon as well as other whitefish such as Halibut
and Cod. And finally NOAA has announced that the Georges
Bank Yellowtail quota will increase 18 percent this year.
This is 44 percent higher than what was projected had NOAA stayed on track with their 2014 rebuilding
target. Eleven other Groundfish quotas will also increase
this year including a 69 percent increase for Mid-Atlantic Yellowtail Flounder a 45
percent increase for Witch Flounder and a 40 percent increase for New England Winter
Flounder. Thank you for joining me for The Tradex Foods
"3-Minute Market Insight" This is Robert Reierson “BUY SMART” “EAT
MORE SEAFOOD” and DON”T forget it’s Valentines’ Day!