Courtesy of SeafoodNews.com:
Seafood consumption figures are in for 2020, revealing how the pandemic helped – and hurt – the industry.
When the coronavirus began spreading in the U.S. in early 2020, the government took extreme lockdown measures, shutting down all non-essential businesses. While restaurants were allowed to remain open, their dining rooms were closed. This was a major blow to the seafood industry, where fish and shellfish thrived at dine-in. However, retail seafood purchases did increase with many people using the lockdown to learn how to cook items that they might not normally have cooked at home. But that uptick in retail purchases weren’t enough to make up for the loss at foodservice.
NOAA’s 2020 Fisheries of the United States report reveals that per capita consumption of seafood dropped slightly from 19.3 pounds in 2019 to 19.0 in 2020. A deeper dive into the “Top Ten” list by the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) sheds some interesting light.
Shrimp held its top spot and even increased consumption from 4.7 pounds in 2019 to 5.0 pounds in 2020. Salmon stayed at the number two spot, but consumption dropped from 3.1 in 2019 to 2.83 pounds in 2020. Canned Tuna stayed in the number three spot and increased from 2.2 pounds in 2019 to 2.60 pounds in 2020. Tilapia bumped Alaska pollock from the number four spot and increased consumption from 0.98 pounds in 2019 to 1.07 pounds in 2020. Alaska Pollock came in at number five, with consumption decreasing from 0.996 pounds in 2019 to 0.88 pounds in 2020. Cod stayed at the number six spot and had a slight decrease from 0.59 pounds in 2019 to 0.57 pounds in 2020. Crab consumption stayed the same at 0.52 pounds, and catfish decreased from 0.55 pounds in 2019 to 0.52 pounds in 2020. Pangasius consumption increased from 0.36 pounds in 2019 to 0.39 pounds in 2020. Finally, scallops entered the top 10, bumping clams which came in the 10th spot in 2019 with 0.3 pounds. Scallop consumption in 2020 was 0.22 pounds.
Overall the top 10 items made up 14.60 pounds (77%) of the 19.0 pounds per capita consumption.
NFI notes that the raw data provided by NOAA is “historically retrospective, so pandemic-related market forces will likely only really be illustrated by data released over the next few years.”
“The next Top Ten list could answer some long-held questions,” explains NFI Programs Director Richard Barry. “Keep in mind, experts at the Global Seafood Market Conference, in January, were busy mapping a predicted overall increase in pandemic-era seafood consumption and species diversification trends, so watch this space.”
