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Retail sales of seafood

The amount of seafood bought from retail outlets (includes supermarkets and fishmongers) declined as consumers continued to feel the pinch of the cost-of-living crisis. In 2023, frozen fish had a revival, with chilled and ambient (e.g. tinned seafood) experiencing a decline in the volume sold.

Did you know?
If we line up all the fish fingers we bought in the UK in 2023, the line would circle the earth nearly four times!

Retail seafood sales in the UK

chilled 62%, frozen 25%, ambient 13%

Value UK retail:

£4.3bn
(+5%)

chilled 43%, frozen 36%, ambient 21%

Volume UK retail:

381,371 tonnes
(-2%)

Chilled Frozen Ambient
  • 1. Salmon – 63,187 tonnes (-6%)
  • 2. Tuna – 60,829 tonnes (-5%)
  • 3. Cod – 45,288 tonnes (-12%)
  • 4. Pollock – 35,222 tonnes (+11%)
  • 5. Warm Water Prawns – 23,850 tonnes (-8%)
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Did you know? Seafood has one of the lowest carbon footprints among all protein sources. This makes it a ‘climate-smart’ food that can help mitigate climate change. Great choices are small pelagic fish or farmed mussels.

Data notes and sources

Landings

Data Source: Marine Management Organisation.

Reference: MMO monthly landings statistics

https://www.gov.uk/government/
collections/monthly-uk-sea-fisheries-statistics

∙ A large pelagic trawler used for deep-sea fishing might weigh around 2,000 to 5,000 tonnes. So, if we take an average weight of 3,500 tonnes, 680,000 tonnes would be equivalent to the weight of around 194 large pelagic trawlers.

Fleet economic performance

Data source: Seafish

Reference: Seafish Fleet Enquiry Tool

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/
seafish/viz/FleetEnquiryTool/1Overview

Note that 2023 performance and landings data is provisional

Aquaculture production

Data Source: Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture (CEFAS)

Reference: Data supplied directly to Seafish

Trade (Imports and Exports)

Data Source: HMRC monthly data via Business Trade Statistics (BTS), processed by Seafish.

Reference: Seafish Trade and Tariff Tool

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/seafish/
viz/SeafishTradeandTariffTool
Overview

Note that 2023 trade data is provisional

Processing

Data source: Seafish

Reference: Seafish Processing Enquiry Tool

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/
seafish/viz/ProcessingEnquiryTool/
Overview

Retail data

NielsenIQ ScanTrack data to 52 week ending 30/12/2023; Reference - Monthly Retail Report 52

week ending (w/e) data to 30.12.23; Link to report on MI Portal; Seafish.Org link to retail page and factsheets.

One Bird’s Eye fish finger weighs 27g and is 9 cm long. With 44,031 tonnes of fish fingers consumed in 2023, this amounts to approximately 1.63 billion fish fingers. Their combined length totals 146,770 km, which is about 3.66 times the Earth's circumference of 40,075 km.

Foodservice data

Circana data to year end December 2023; Reference - 2023 Q4 NPD Data Sheet; Link to report on

MI Portal; Seafish.Org link to foodservice page and factsheets.