The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to limit the spread of the virus caused a major shock to the world’s trade system. As seafood is the most traded food commodity, this indicates a potential of a significant impact. Investigating the impacts is difficult, though, as the relevant data is often published only with a significant delay, with a partial exception for prices. While a number of studies have used different indicators to show significant challenges, these all tend to be focused on specific cases. In this study we will use a few different data sources to show that in aggregate the impact of COVID-19 has been limited in some significant parts of the seafood market.
The FAO fish price index show virtually no significant movement in 2020 or 2021 through August. When disaggregated to farmed and wild fish, there is some indication of a price decline for farmed fish during spring 2020. The largest seafood importer in the world, the U.S., had its largest year-on-year growth in imports this century from 2019 to 2020. While this certainly does not invalidate all the reports of challenges caused by COVID-19 and disrupted logistics, it does suggest that there are ways around those challenges. For producers who can find them, COVID-19 actually seem to have created significant opportunities. This is best illustrated with U.S. retail sales of seafood which increased by 28% from 2019 to 2020.