Species such as whitebait, cuttlefish, ling, snapper and skate experienced a significant increase in sales or volume sold in the UK marketplace over the festive period.
The data reveals that whitebait was one of the most significant success stories. £34,500 worth of the bite sized fish crossed counters between the four week period from 6 December to 2 January 2016, an 11,858 per cent increase when compared to sales figures for the same period last year.
Adventurous consumers also purchased 234 per cent more cuttlefish. After registering almost negligible sales over Christmas 2014, more than £3,000 worth of the undervalued cephalopod made its way into shopping baskets.
Another surprise success was the growth in sales of ling, a species native to the arctic and North Sea, similar in taste and texture to cod. The species saw a 3,128 per cent increase in sales over the festive period in comparison to last year.
Snapper showed signs of becoming one of our favourite tropical exports. Popular internationally, but only starting to make its mark domestically, it grew 418 per cent with sales of £10,200.
Bottom feeders such as skate and ray also made a bigger impact with sales of £122,470 of the flat fish in retailers over Christmas, a massive growth of 162.1% against 2014.
Premium seafood products were also on the menu, with consumers purchasing more Caviar than ever before, over £167,502 of the luxury ingredient was sold to Christmas shoppers looking to splash out, a 44 per cent increase in performance.
Julia Brooks, Market Insight Analyst at Seafish comments: “It’s great to see a wider variety of seafood making gains in the marketplace. As well as being an indicator of shifting consumer tastes, these findings also reflect an increased effort from retailers to expand their product ranges and bring undervalued, high quality species into the mainstream.”
