Every German bought around 6.3 kilograms of fish last year. Preferably frozen or in a can. So far this year, the appetite has been smaller. But the industry is not dissatisfied.
After the extremely great desire of Germans for fish and seafood in the first two years of Corona, it seems to wane again in the third Corona year. In the first half of the year, 14 percent less fish was bought than in the same period last year, as the chairman of the fish information center, René Stahlhofen, said in Hamburg. Based on the purchase value, this corresponds to a decrease of 412 million euros.
However, the head of the central marketing organ of the fish industry was not dissatisfied. “The enormous growth in the two exceptional years of Corona, 2020 and 2021, cannot be repeated in terms of quantity or value.” Accordingly, he also compared the first half of 2022 with the first pre-Corona half of 2019. And there the decline of 1.5 percent was marginal, he said. In addition, more money comes into the till because of higher prices. Because the value of the goods is 110 million euros higher than in the first half of 2019. This applies in particular to fresh fish and canned fish. Only for smoked fish was there a decrease of 18 million euros compared to the pre-corona values.
Last year, Germans spent more money on fish than ever before. In total, around 5.4 billion euros were paid for 495,053 tons of fish and seafood in food retail in the second Corona year 2021, said Stahlhofen. In 2020, more fish and seafood went over the counters. But according to the information, there was only around 5.3 billion euros in revenue.
Favorite fish was again salmon, followed by Alaskan pollack, which pushed tuna and bonites to third place. Fourth and fifth place went to herring and shrimp. But trout, squid, mackerel, cod and redfish were also popular. According to the information, Germans prefer to eat the fish from the can and as a frozen product. This was followed by crustaceans, molluscs and fresh fish.
According to the information, the biggest fish lovers lived in Schleswig-Holstein. Arithmetically, 7.1 kilograms went over the counter here per capita. The Rhineland-Palatinate came to 6.9 and the Hamburg to 6.7 kilos. Baden-Württemberg came in last with 5.4 kilos per capita. The national average was 6.3 kilograms.
Stahlhofen put the total amount of fish and seafood last year at almost two million tons. After deducting exports, for example, a good one million tons were consumed in Germany in 2021, which is estimated to mean 13.4 kilograms per capita. In the first Corona year, the value was 14.8 kilograms. In addition to retail, gastronomy also flows in here.
In view of the uncertainties caused by the corona pandemic, the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, inflation, the ongoing difficult logistics and the energy crisis, Stahlhofen did not dare to make any specific forecasts for the fishing industry.
