Sales of fish at French auctions falls 2.5% in 2018
Decline consoldiates falling sales trend of recent years.
Volume sales of seafood at fish auctions in France fell 2.5 percent in 2018 from a year earlier, figures from trade body FranceAgrimer show.
Sales slipped to 189,196 metric tons from 194,132 metric tons a year earlier.
Auctions at Boulogne-sur Mer, Lorient, Le Guilvinec, Erquy and St Quay Portrieux ranked as the top five auctions for volume sales.
Fécamp (+47 percent), Grandcamp (+21 percent) and St Guénolé (+19 percent) posted the biggest rises in volume sales.
Concarneau (-22 percent), St Jean de Luz (-21 percent) and Oléron (-19 percent) saw the largest falls in volumes.
The value of seafood sold at auction fell 4 percent as to €640 million ($733 million).
The decline is attributed to a change in the split between volumes of fish sold at lower prices and the scarcity of higher value species.
Auctions at Le Guilvinec, Lorient, Boulogne sur Mer, Les Sables d’Olonne, Erquy sold most seafood by value in 2018.
Average prices for most species continued to rise in 2018 except for scallop and saithe, which saw availability increase in 2018.
Average fish prices edged lower by 1.5 percent to €3.39/kg ($3.88) from €3.44/kg ($3.94) in 2017.
Private sales dip
French vendors have their own particular definition of how fish is sold. Species such as plaice, sole, bass, sea bass, monkfish, red mullet and turbot fall into a premium category known as "poisson fins", literally "fine" or "gourmet" fish.
Report: Keys for getting into France's growing ready-meal marketWhitefish fall into a separate category that includes cod, hake, haddock and pollock.
France has close to 40 open outcry auctions dotted along its 3,427 km (2,130 miles) coastline on three sides of its hexagonal landscape.
Frequently situated at quaysides, they carry out the first sale of seafood that finds its way to the nation's dinner plates via the domestic processing hubs and supermarket retailers.
The volume of seafood changing hands in private sales on the sidelines of French fish auctions rose 5.3 percent in 2018 to 55,275 metric tons. Total private sales by value fell 3 percent to €107.9 million ($123.7 million). Average prices of seafood sold privately in auction halls dropped 8 percent to €1.85 ($2.12)/kilogram.
