Tilapia experts say 2014 should be another boom year for fresh fillets as demand remains high, but buyers will find it harder to get supply as farmers in Ecuador complete their shift to shrimp.
Analysts told IntraFish this week the declining supply from Ecuador will be helped by increasing production in Mexico and Columbia, but won’t be enough to keep prices from rising.
In November 2012, Ecuador exported an average 342,000 pounds of fresh tilapia a week, but with so many farmers having switched from tilapia to shrimp to take advantage of the global shortage caused by Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS), the exports plummeted 60.5
