Irish Take Home Seafood Market Peformance 2021

Michael Hussey, Senior Manager Alcohol & Seafood

Overall performance remained strong through 2021 with the total ROI Seafood Market up by +1.9% YoY. Whilst purchase volumes declined YoY, the growth was driven by increases in average prices per kg (Kantar, 2021).

Fresh prepacked fish growth fluctuated during 2021 but grew ahead of the total market, seeing value sales increase by +3.6% YoY. The top 3 most frequent prepacked species purchased were Salmon, Cod and warm water Prawns. Within prepacked, Ready to Cook (RTC) products achieved double-digit growth of +14% driven by solutions with flavours, marinades and sauces. Coated prepacked products however, were in decline (Kantar, 2021).

Fresh loose fish saw the greatest decline within the total market at -4.5% YoY, driven by reduced shopper penetration and changes to retail offerings. Shoppers switched to both frozen and prepacked fish and some left the category altogether (Kantar, 2021).

Frozen fish grew +1.0% YoY driven by increases in average price per kg due to increased sales of full price items. Brands continued to dominate the value share of the sub-category, however Private Label grew at a faster rate (Kantar, 2021). Coated, Fishfingers and Natural remain the dominant product types, although Fishfingers and Goujons saw declines on 2020.

Ready To Eat (RTE) saw a consistent drop in growth over the last 6 months of 2021 to deliver an overall YoY decline of -2.0%. The biggest decline came from Flavours but carries a small share of RTE and so the impact came from Smoked which held the most share and fell by -6.0% versus 2021 (Kantar, 2021). At a species level, RTE Salmon was the only species in decline as Crab, Mackerel and Prawns were all in growth.

Reference:

- 2021. Kantar Worldpanel (BIM)