Seafood buyers looking for a bargain should have their eyes trained on whitefish at the moment, reported The Grocer magazine, citing commodity intelligence service Mintec.
Prices for cod dropped 13.6 percent over the past 12 months, with representative Danish prices now at £3,397 (€4,181/$5,525) per metric ton, following a 10.5 percent drop over the past month.
Haddock prices went down by 24.2 percent to £873.3 (€1,075/$1,420) per metric ton, while coley and plaice have also seen lower prices, nose diving 18.5 percent to a metric ton-price of £1,233 (€1,518/$2,005) and 10.9 percent to £1,362 (€1,676/$2,215) per metric ton, respectively.
Away from whitefish, prices have seen a boost over the past 12 months.
Representative Belgium prices for coldwater shrimp increased 25.6 year-on-year to £2,661 (€3,275/$4,328) per metric ton, even though they went down by 3.2 percent over the past month.
Reasons for the increase are high demand, and reduced quotas in Greenland and the Gulf of Maine, as well as an expected reduction in Canada's total allowable catch.
Prices for yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean went up by 17.8 percent over the past year to £1,969 (€2,424/$3,202) per metric ton, even though they recently fell by 3.5 percent month-on-month.
Thai prices for skipjack tuna on the other hand went up by 5.8 percent to £1,268 (€1,561/$2,062).6 year-on-year, even though they saw a steep decline of 11.1 percent over the last month.
Prices for Norwegian salmon are also on the path to recovery over the past six months, Mintec noted.
In Spain, representative prices for jack mackerel went up 8.8 over the past 12 months to £2,293 (€2,822/$3,729) per metric ton, while prices for sardines saw an increase of 3.9 percent to £2,140 (€2,634/$3,480) per metric ton.
Alaska pollock prices continue climb
Report tracks sharp rise in value, though prices for other Alaska groundfish species have held steady.
A new Seafood Intelligence Report from market analysts at Marko Partners shows the strong year-on-year rise for prices on Alaska pollock over the past year, noting that across the board, product values have climbed.
The report compares prices for six Alaska groundfish products for the period between January and September of 2012 to the year prior, showing that non-Alaska pollock products have shown mixed performance.
Pacific cod prices, for example, have held steady over the past year.
Alaska Pollock roe, however, fell in price by 14 percent, the report noted.