Expected Larger Wild Salmon Catches Could Bring Further Downward Pressure on Prices

Last year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported the highest harvest of red salmon (sockeye salmon) on record, at 75 million units.

Source: Tridge and USDA

The harvest season of this fish species runs from May through September. As the 2022 season went on and the harvest numbers were being reported higher than expected, in addition to growing inflationary pressures on consumers, prices fell sharply from their peak in May but were capped around their five-year average in September, and remained trading relatively flatly throughout the rest of the year.

Nonetheless, the record harvest in 2022 caused an abundance of this product which remains. Prices resumed their downward trend in early 2023, with prices in February registering a 37% year-over-year decline and a 14% fall compared to the previous five-year average. In contrast, export prices of farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway were higher 27% year-over-year this February 2023.

While demand picked-up considerably as a result of the lower prices, it didn’t manage to offset the red salmon surplus. Total export volume in the last 12 months, at 45.5 thousand mt, was 27% higher compared to the same period a year ago.

Now, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is expecting an increase in the total harvest of commercial salmon for this 2023. The harvest is expected to come to 189 million fish, compared to last year’s 163 million (which was near the long-term historical average, but the highest for an even-numbered year since 2010). This time, the harvest of red salmon is expected to decline to 48 million units, but this number is still respectable compared to the historical catch figures reported by the department. Of course, there is also the possibility of the figure coming higher than expected, which occurred in the last two years.

It is likely that the overabundance of this fish will continue pressuring prices down in the upcoming months. While the bulk of this product is consumed in the United States, exports are also considerable, with major importers including Korea, Japan, Canada, and Europe. It’s worth noting that, after trading flat through Q1 2022, wholesale prices of frozen sockeye salmon in Japan saw a drop of 11% week-over-week this mid-April, according to Tridge data.

Moreover, the larger expected harvests of other wild salmon species, such as pink salmon, which is expected to total 122 million units in Alaska this 2023, almost doubling 2022’s figures, will also exert downward pressure on prices.

This not only pertains to Alaska, as, earlier in the year, Russian fishing authorities reported that the total wild salmon catch from Russia was expected to be 511 thousand mt, almost double the number of 2022, with the bulk of it coming from pink salmon, as well.