SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton Feb 27, 2014 — Over the last year, both retail snow crab and shrimp prices have been near their historic high levels, while lobster has represented a value.
We now can see evidence of a market shift to take advantage of this relative pricing in retail promotions in January and February of this year.
We compared retail promotions on three products: cooked 31-40 shrimp, 4 oz lobster tail, and snow crab clusters (all sizes).
The number of stores running lobster tail promotions doubled in January and February 2014 vs. 2013.
At the same time, the number of cooked shrimp promotions fell 31%, and the number of snow crab promotions fell 26.5%
The chart at the left illustrates this shift. (data is from Urner Barry Retail Features Database)
These estimates are derived from promotional activity, which we use as a proxy for volume.
In 2013, the median 31-40 cooked retail shrimp price was $8.99. In 2014, for the first two months, this had risen to $9.99.
For snow crab, the median promotional price in the first two months of 2013 was $6.99, and in 2014 it was unchanged at $6.99.
For 4 oz lobster tail, the 2013 median price in this period was $5.99, while for the first two months of 2014, it was $4.99.
It appears that retailers took advantage of the relative value of lobster compared to crab and shrimp to soak up more product.
In recent months the price of lobster tail has been rising again, and it is partly due to the expansion of volume at retail.
At the upcoming Boston seafood show it will be interesting to see where the retail promotional interest lies, as initial indications for the first half of the year are that now all of these shellfish items – cooked shrimp, snow crab, and lobster tail – will be at the same wholesale price or higher than last year. Where does that leave the retail opportunity in shellfish?
It may lead to more promotion of non-shellfish items that have some marketing pull – like grill items such as salmon, swordfish, and tuna.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.