Covid-19 impact on seafood industry

We’ve reviewed a range of data and information to analyse Covid-19 impact on seafood businesses throughout 2020. This involved a high-level view of the whole of the seafood supply chain to explore the impact on:

• UK seafood markets,
• Seafood business operations, and
• Consumer behaviour.

In the UK, we export a lot of the seafood we catch and import much of the seafood we eat. Since our seafood supply chain is heavily integrated into the global supply chain global responses to the Covid-19 pandemic affect our industry. As such information on this has also been included.

To put together these reviews we’ve drawn on data available at the time of writing. This included official statistics, industry insights and published news articles. Reference lists are included in the pdf version of the reports below.

Our reports on this looks at the initial impact from January to June 2020, then for subsequent quarters.

Review of Covid-19 impact from January to March 2021

Published in July 2021, the webpages linked below, provide a high-level view of the impact of Covid-19 on the whole of the UK seafood supply chain in the first three months of 2021. It also covers the significant impact which changes to the trading relationship with the EU had on many businesses, following the end of the Brexit transition period.

Please refer to the downloadable version of the report (available below) for a full set of references, citations, footnotes and hyperlinks to external websites.

This will be will be the final report in this series and format. Throughout 2021 we will continue to monitor, analyse and report on factors affecting the UK seafood industry.

You can download a copy of the full report from the link below:

Review of Covid-19 impact from October to December 2020

Published in March 2021, the webpages linked below, provide a high-level view of the whole of the seafood supply chain from mid autumn to winter. This includes exploring the impact on UK seafood markets, seafood business operations and consumer behaviour. 

This report also includes data we collected during our regular fleet survey.

You can also download a copy of the full report from the link below:

Review of Covid-19 impact from July to September 2020

Published in December 2020, the webpages linked below describe the impacts of Covid-19 from mid-summer to early autumn.

This covers the period where lockdown restrictions eased in July and August, and the subsequent rise in cases and increase in restrictions in August and September. This report also includes initial data collected during our regular processing survey – more details on this will be published on our Seafood processing data and insight webpage in 2021.

You can also download a copy of the full report from the link below:

Review of Covid-19 impact from January to June 2020

Published in September 2020, the webpages linked below describe how seafood sectors have been affected in the first half of the year.

This covers the initial impacts of Covid-19 in January and February, the introduction of the UK lockdown in March and how this affected the industry from April until June.

You can also download a copy of the full report from the link below:

Covid-19 impacts on the UK catching sector in 2020

The Covid-19 impacts on the UK catching sector in 2020 report is part of the series of Covid-19 impact analyses produced by Seafish. It presents results of the annual fleet survey, conducted by post (rather than in ports and harbours), during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

During the survey, we asked additional questions about vessel operations, finances and owner strategies that were introduced to cope with the extraordinary events of 2020. The survey also presents vessel owners’ views of government financial support, and outlines which factors vessel owners expect will influence their businesses in the 3 to 5 years from 2020. Follow the link below to access the report. 

Updates to this review

We will provide a rolling update of Covid-19 impacts on the seafood industry.

We appreciate any feedback or comments on the reports - please contact Ana Witteveen by the details below.

Contacts