During the Chinese Autumn festivities, catering and tourism industries have bloomed. The consumption of seafood in this period showed explosive growth, putting on record the sales for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic.
According to the data offered by a large aquatic wholesale market in Shanghai, the daily average sales of aquatic products during the holiday period exceeded 2,000 tons, a year-on-year double increase. The prices of some seafood products have also risen sharply: imported king crabs’ and lobsters’ prices surged due to increased demand and short supply. Apart from the regular increase of seafood consumption in this period, this year growth was also triggered by the escalated number of weddings organized in this period, as the pandemic was an obstacle in the previous months for this kind of familiar events.
Following the tradition, Chinese people pay special attention to family dinners on festivals. They prefer for these occasions mainly fresh and live seafood and local wild fish. The demand for high-end imported seafood is also huge. Among them, the Boston lobster was a sales star this year, due its high cost performance. In Shanghai Jiangyang aquatic market, the sales volume of Boston lobster has reached 60 tons per day. The following imported products in sales performance were Australian lobster, King Crab and Grouper. The sales of imported frozen fish and shrimp have also risen sharply due to the increase number of wedding banquets and catering events.
In addition to the traditional sales channels of markets and supermarkets, online sales of seafood are also escalating during the holiday season. According to statistics, before the traditional festivals or holidays, keyword searches for imported seafood such as lobster, king crab, salmon, shrimp increased significantly. At present, seafood sales in China turned increasingly dependent on e-commerce platforms.
Generally, China’s seafood market has high seasonality and high dependence on festivals. Autumn is the peak season for the Chinese seafood sales. On top of the festivities, Autumn also marks the end of the fishing ban season, which makes consumers demand seafood at larger scale than in the others seasons.
On medium term, the upcoming Chinese New Year in three months from now on will determined Chinese distributors to build stocks, which might lead to the growth of the imported seafood sales.
