The price drop is not stopping.
“The mood is poor. Prices continue to fall. There are lots of fish on offer. Loads of large salmon. It’s not easy,” an exporter told SalmonBusiness.
“Fish is being offered at around NOK 65.00 ($6.37/€5.66) delivered today. But few are biting. So the purchase price needs to go even lower to match it. The large fish are a real problem. It’s not simple. There’s a lot of big, really big fish. It’s overflowing with everything now,” he added, sounding frustrated.
The fact that next week is a four-day trading week doesn’t help stimulate buying.
Pressure
“Many producers can’t operate at that price. There’s a lot of biomass and plenty of harvest-ready fish. Slaughtering won’t pause now. There will be steady pressure ahead. We’re likely to see a development we haven’t seen in years. The exchange rate isn’t helping either. The dollar has weakened—that’s not positive either. A lot of factors are hitting at once. It’s now dipping below production cost for more and more players.”
“Harvesting of the new generation is happening earlier this year than last. And there’s still quite a bit of fish in cold storage from the autumn.”
All sources today are reporting the same message about falling prices.
“It’s pretty rough out there. The price has dropped NOK 10.00–12.00 ($0.98–$1.18/€0.87–€1.04). There was some scrambling about a week ago. Now there’s just too much fish,” said another exporter.
“Producer prices next week look like: 2–3 kg at NOK 52.00 ($5.10/€4.52), 3–6 kg at NOK 60.00 ($5.88/€5.22), and 6+ kg at NOK 56.00 ($5.49/€4.87). That’s what we need to pay to get our margin back.”
“Can you actually buy at those prices?”
“We don’t know. But we can’t keep going as we are, losing NOK 10.00 ($0.98/€0.87) per kilo. We haven’t made a single øre in margin this year. We’ve paid to sell the fish. And I think that goes for all exporters. We’re killing ourselves. The customers hold all the power. There’s too much fish and not enough demand. As customers say: ‘Even if it’s five euros, I can’t take the fish—we still have stock to sell off.’”
Power
“Some bigger players are just pricing below us. Clearly, there’s a lot of fish for the rest of the year. And the customers know it, unfortunately. Consumer prices haven’t gone down. Supermarket chains aren’t lowering prices. They hold all the power. There’s no quick fix,” he continued.
“I’ve never seen so much large fish. Last year we harvested a lot of small fish. This year the fish are half a kilo bigger across the board. But we are helping build new markets. The fish is getting eaten. I think we’re heading into a tough autumn, price-wise,” he predicted.
While farmers are hoping for prices in the mid-60s, buyers are coming in at NOK 60.00 ($5.88/€5.22)—or just below.
Market strain
“It’s somewhere in between. It’s quiet, so we haven’t done much,” said one farmer.
“NOK 62.00–65.00 ($6.08–$6.37/€5.39–€5.66), hoping for NOK 66.00–67.00 ($6.47–$6.57/€5.74–€5.83), but then you hear others offering prices in the fifties. I’d guess if you’re sitting on 8–10 unsold truckloads, you’re at the lower end.”
“Converted to round weights, we’re talking more than 8,000–9,000 tonnes per week, compared to the same period last year in recent weeks. I’ve never seen anything like it. So it’s understandable that there’s pressure on prices. Some perceive it as a weak market, but it’s really those 8,000–9,000 tonnes. It’s being consumed—it’s not going into storage. However much fish we produce in this country, it ends up being eaten.”
“Another brutally tough week. NOK 58.00–60.00 ($5.68–$5.88/€5.05–€5.22) for 3+ kg,” one exporter wrote in a text.
“3–6 kg at NOK 59.00–60.00 ($5.78–$5.88/€5.13–€5.22), 6+ kg at NOK 57.00 ($5.59/€4.96),” wrote another.
This means that price levels are now below production costs for several farming companies.