Cod is the big winner in the per capita U.S. consumption numbers, as it has taken an increased share of the whitefish market over the past five years.
The per capita consumption numbers released by the National Fisheries Institute recently showed a drop in overall U.S. seafood consumption from 15.5 to 14.9 pounds. Almost all of the drop was attributable to salmon, where consumption fell .7 pounds per person.
The NMFS model, on which NFI bases its numbers, is a disappearance model and is changed when Alaska has a big year on pink salmon, or a negative year. In 2016 Alaska landed 300 million pounds less salmon than in 2015, mostly due to a shortfall in pinks. When converted to edible weight, this accounts for almost all the drop in salmon consumption.
The numbers are more useful to show trends over time, which do not depend quite so much on the year to year changes in harvest.
This year, three species stood out as making consistent consumption gains: shrimp, cod and pangasius.
Shrimp grew from 4.0 to 4.1 pounds per capita, an increase of 2.5 per cent. This reflects the continued health of the shrimp market in the U.S. and this number should grow again for 2017.
Pangasius has been gaining market share versus tilapia and its consumption grew 20 per cent from 0.743 to 0.89 pounds per person.
Meanwhile domestic catfish was basically unchanged at 0.51 pounds per person.
The popularity of pangasius comes from its low prices that have held during 2014, 2015 and 2016. This has now changed with pricing moving up 15 per cent in 2017. Further, the pangasius supply could face disruption due to USDA inspection procedures.
The surprising star of whitefish growth has been cod.
Cod consumption (which includes both Atlantic and Pacific cod) has been trending upward for five years. It has grown from 0.52 pounds per capita to 0.66 pounds per capita.
While overall whitefish consumption (cod, pollock, tilapia, pangasius, catfish) has fallen 0.3 per cent in 2016, cod consumption grew 10 per cent based on per capita figures. Cod’s share of the whitefish market has grown from 11 per cent to 16 per cent over the past five years.
On the negative side, canned tuna continues to lose seafood market share. The trend has been steadily down over the past five years and per capita consumption fell another 4.5 per cent in the latest figures. Tuna has gone from 2.4 pounds per person in 2012 to 2.1 pounds per person today.
Shellfish numbers are hard to compute from the data, as scallops are not included in the top ten species. Crab consumption has been stable.
This article was republished with permission of John Sackton and seafood.com.
