Aquaculture 2022

February 28 - March 4, 2022

San Diego, California

RETAIL SEAFOOD MARKET TRENDS IN THE U.S., 2016 TO 2021

 

Lianqun Sun*, Ganesh Kumar, Carole Engle, and Jonathan Van Senten

Mississippi State University, Delta Research, and Extension Center, Stoneville, Mississippi, U.S.A.

 



 The U.S. is the largest seafood market globally, with supply dominated by imports . Domestic aquaculture producers seldom have information on the diverse and dynamic  trends in retail markets , and the lack of such information became especially apparent throughout the COVID-19 pandemic .   To examine retail market trends for seafood in the U.S., seafood scanner data (ScanTrack® ) were purchased from A.C. Nielsen . The data set  comprised of weekly sales information from  September 2016 to August 2021 for 54 citi es, eight regional markets, and  the overall U.S.  retail market  from more than 62,000 retail stores for 53 major seafood categories. The study examined the latest trends  and product-specific information  in sales values for different seafood products .  Overall, retail seafood sales increased by 44% from 2016 to 2021.  The largest seafood segment was shrimp with a market share of 29%, follow ed  by s almon (21%) ,  tuna (11%)  and crab (10%) in the year 2020-2021 (Figure 1) . Those four seafood species also ranked as top species in all regional markets by sales values . The south central region  was the largest seafood regional market for many species , including catfish, swai and other major species. Of the top ten seafood products sold in retail markets in 2020-2021, four (shrimp, salmon, tilapia, and catfish) were products that are primarily supplied from aquaculture. Of these the majority of shrimp, salmon, and tilapia sales are of imported products, leaving catfish as the only top-ten product for which sales are primarily from domestic farms. Imported swai/basa ranked 15th in retail market sales. New York was the largest seafood-consuming  city  in terms of  sales revenue for retail seafood sales, and was followed by Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami/West Palm Beach, Chicago, and Washington, D.C . Only  about 13 % sales of seafood  products were sold under promotion in retail markets , although promotional sales were greater for species  such as lobster, shrimp, salmon, cod & scrod, and tuna.