Latin American seafood sellers face booming retail demand for their products this year in their home markets, which is good news for producers. Still, foodservice demand is likely to see a continued downturn due to new pandemic lockdowns and the spike in retail does not offset the restaurant and hotel sectors' lack of orders.
This is causing producers' margins to shrink, panelists at the three-day Latin American Summit for Fisheries and Aquaculture Sustainability, which began Oct. 28, said.
Robinson Abraham Pinto Castillo, seafood product manager at Peruvian retailer Supermercados Peruanos, pointed out that frozen, packaged, and canned products became more popular during the lockdown due to a shift among consumers towards in-home dining. He added rising online sales is another clear emerging trend in Latin America's seafood consumption.
Portion shift
Andres Vergara from Chilean salmon producer Compania Pesquera Camanchaca noted that both consumers and restaurants in Latin America are increasingly moving to salmon portions relative to fillets.
"Our sale of salmon [used to be focused] on frozen fillets but during the pandemic sales migrated strongly to the salmon portions," Vergara said.
He noted that the trend was evident, especially in supermarkets, and expected it to continue even after the pandemic.
Additionally, Vergara pointed out that restaurants are also increasingly buying portions.
Across Latin America, restaurants are operating at 30-50% of their capacity, meaning that they had to reduce their menus.
As a result, salmon acquired more "relative share in menus", according to Vergara.
He also noted that there has been a spike in sales of fresh salmon, describing it as "a market niche of people willing to pay a little more to receive a better, fresher product".
"It's a more demanding consumer, concerned about eating healthy," he said.
But another executive from a sizeable Chilean farmer, who declined to be named publicly, told Undercurrent News on the summit's sidelines that the market situation for salmon producers is "awful".
"We've been very active in the frozen markets, trying to reduce spot sales in fresh, but the problem is still very bad, because of the lack of demand from hotels, restaurants, resorts, cruise lines, etc," he said. "The [market] situation is very bad right now, price in the US has more or less stabilized in the low to mid $3s, with limited possibilities to rebound during November due to Thanksgiving and the turkey season. Prices in Brazil are softening due to over-supply, as China is not buying fresh salmon from Chile," he said.
Still, Vergara pointed out Latin America was still far behind regarding e-commerce, which is growing.
Gerardo Sanchez from KUA Mex Foods pointed out that e-commerce is growing fast in Mexico. He agreed with Supermercados Peruanos' Pinto that the pandemic had caused a race to buy frozen products, a trend that has lasted over eight months.
More flexibility
He added that customers are generally interested in more "flexible" products, for example, smaller portions than 1 kilogram and 600 grams and ready-to-eat as well as products that reduced preparation time.
Sanchez also agreed with Vergara that consumers might want to consume a specific number of individual portions, so "we need to work on products with more flexibility", offering customers the possibility to "take a decision" on "what they want to consume" with it.
He also said his company has seen higher sales of fresh products. Initially, he thought consumers' lower financial ability drove it, but later realized it was due to a change in living habits.
"People cannot save products for long, and they go every two days to the shops," he said.
He concluded that "convenience" was a key element since people were looking for solutions to reduce preparation time.
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November 10, 2020 at 10:50PM
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COVID-19 sees Latin Americans eating more salmon portions, ready-to-eat products - Undercurrent News
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