Soaring cold water shrimp prices
Seafood prices are only going one way these years; up – and since the late summer months, cold water shrimp prices have been soaring all over the world and they are expected to peak during the high-consumption period around Christmas. This situation is caused by a number of coinciding issues – quota cuts, weather conditions, illness in farmed warm water shrimp – all resulting in a worldwide shrimp shortage, pushing up prices.
By Ditte LundCold water shrimp quotas have been cut substantially over the years resulting in less product on the market – both from Greenland and Canada. Furthermore, the Canadian fishery has experienced some hardships due to very cold weather and difficult ice-situation in the 2013/14 catching season. This combined with the lowered TAC meant that the Canadian fishermen chose to focus on other species, e.g. capelin, for a while, thus shortening the season and catching less shrimp. Much of the shrimp that were caught in the 2013/14 season, were sent to the North American market, which meant that there have been app. 10,000 T less Canadian shrimp for the European market than expected.
Influence from other species
The price development of other shrimp species also has some influence on the cold water shrimp price. In the market, some substitution between cold water shrimp and farmed warm water species takes place.
Historically, cold- and warm water prices have followed each other. However, Warm water prices have risen over the last few years, as the Asian warm water farms have been hit by the illness EMS (Early Mortality Syndrome), causing the shrimp to die in their ponds, which lowered the volume produced substantially, triggering price increases. EMS meant that the demand for cold water shrimp increased substantially, as retailers and wholesalers largely replaced the missing volume of warm water shrimp with cold water shrimp. Warm water producers seem to be starting to recover from the disease, making them able to put more volume on the market, again matching supply with demand.
Future perspectives for cold water shrimp
As opposed to the farmed warm water shrimp, cold water shrimp are wild caught, meaning that production cannot necessarily be increased to meet the market demand – at least not without jeopardizing the sustainability of the fishery and ultimately depleting the stock. So in the end, the market has to adapt to the smaller supply, for example by influencing end-users' perception of cold water shrimp from an everyday commodity to a product for special occasions, partly through pricing but also by, as an industry, taking responsibility for making the best possible quality – read more about this here.
