Norwegian salmon price ‘will stay at NOK 50 for now’
The price achieved for salmon in Norway will remain around NOK 50 (£3.88) per kilo in the coming weeks because of continued limited demand in the food service sector, a seafood analyst has said.
Carl-Emil Kjølås Johannessen, who works for Oslo-based financial services firm Pareto Securities, believes the prices will fall seasonally in August, and told Fish Farming Expert’s Norwegian sister site Kyst.no that for the third quarter Pareto expects the price to average at NOK 45 (£3.49 per kg).
“Some weeks the price will probably fall below NOK 40,” he added.
Hopeful for June
In its Q3 estimate, Pareto expects the HoReCa (Hotel / Restaurant / Catering) segment to improve somewhat, and that the opening of some restaurants is a positive sign.
“If further opening of the HoReCa segment goes faster than we expect, one can probably see a strengthening of the price towards the end of May / early June and perhaps the prices will rise somewhat in the 50s,” said the analyst.
Regardless, Kjølås Johannessen believes that prices in Q3 will fall further from the current level, as volumes from Norway and Scotland always increase significantly in the autumn.
“In Q4, however, we believe that HoReCa demand will improve even more, and we estimate a Q4 price of NOK 59 / € 5.4 per kg,” he pointed out.
Exports stay strong
Covid-19 has had less effect on salmon export volumes than prices, with Norway exporting just 2% less than at the same time last year.
“A 2% change in export volumes is almost nothing, and I would say that the corona virus has had a very small effect on the harvest volumes in Norway,” said the analyst.
“We have seen a turn towards more fillet exports, which is probably driven by demand from the retail segment, which wants more fillets.”
