SEAFOOD.COM NEWS– January 21, 2014 — There has been some optimism from US shrimp importers in January, and it seems like it is based on surging retail sales of shrimp in December.
The holidays are a major sales period for shrimp. Looking at weekly retail promotion data from Urner Barry’s retail database, we see a remarkable story on shrimp.
In 2013 retailers started December being extremely cautious – with the number of shrimp promotions down 73% from 2012 as of December 3rd.
Then in the next two weeks, promotions increased to 60% of the 2012 level, then 80%, and in the final week of the year 91% of the 2012 level.
Source: Urner Barry Retail Database
During this time, price increases on major items ranged from 14% to 22%.
What the numbers seem to be saying is that as the month wore on, retailers were increasingly confident about shrimp sales, and rapidly increased their promotional activity despite the fact that they were selling shrimp at a much higher price.
In 2012, promotions peaked in mid-December, and declined over the next two weeks. In 2013 promotions kept growing week by week right up through the New Year's holiday.
As a result, there is some evidence that retailers coming in to the Superbowl weekend and Lent are not weighed down with excessive shrimp inventories.
Source: Urner Barry Retail Database. These are average prices for the month of December.
This is an extremely positive development and supports the idea that US consumers will indeed keep buying shrimp even as prices rise. This means that they will be formidable competitors to other countries, such as China, and will support purchasing by US importers if shrimp supplies remain tight.
It also means that as shrimp supplies increase, there will be latent demand in the US that should help maintain demand should value opportunities arise. After a very rough year in 2013, this kind of buyer behavior is an encouraging sign.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.