The Future for Salmon in Germany

Summary

The purpose of this report is to describe and analyse the potential development in one of the prime markets for farmed salmon, namely Germany. The report focus on issues that primarily are perceived as important for industrial buyers when they consider buying salmon for processing and/or sales further downstream in the marketing channel. During the last decade there has been a significant increasing dominance of the super- and hypermarket chains in German food retailing. Notwithstanding, the fish marketing channels in Germany is still quite fragmented, which reduces the extreme bargaining power of the large retail organisations slightly. Farmed salmon is one of the few seafood species that show signs of stable growth in the German market. Although the German industry have bought both Pacific wild and Atlantic farmed salmon, the pacific salmon does not seem to represent a big threat to the suppliers of Atlantic farmed salmon. A main reason for this is the potential for stability in both quality and delivery that the suppliers can provide with. The main usage of farmed salmon in Germany is smoked salmon. The main growth potential in the future seems to be in the main course segments fresh and/or frozen. Although the perspectives of the German market for farmed salmon might seem “rosy” there are potential problems that might even cause long-term damages for the development. The main threats or potential problems are related to negatively charged media focus that pursue the perspective of large-scale breeding or “live-stock farming” on farmed salmon. The Germans indicated that the question of “animal” welfare on salmon breeding is of great importance for the future market development. Another potential problem area is the question of genetically modified salmon and the use of genetically modified organisms as an ingredient in the fish fodder. The German industrial buyers revealed strong resistance or reluctance to buy farmed salmon where either of the two dimensions of GMO was present.