Canned tuna imports into Germany occupied 97 percent of the total

Now, German market is favoring ready-to-eat, semi-processed, canned seafood products. German consumers give priority to products with reasonable price, high quality and easy to use. Formerly, German consumers liked products with reasonable price while in the past 10 years, they are in high demand for processed tuna. 

Tuna consumption by German people in the period of 2006 - 2010 saw stability. Since 2010, the consumption reported a slight reduction. The average per capita consumption of the item in the country reached 2 kilogram per annum. According to report of Fisch Informationszentrum, tuna consumption accounted for nearly 11 percent of the country’s total seafood demand. According to International Trade Center (ITC), Germany ranked the 8^th in importing tuna and the 7^th in buying canned tuna in the world. Among top 7 largest canned tuna importers, Germany is claiming the highest growth in importing the item with its market share of more than 3.4 percent of the total canned tuna imports by the world.

Germany is importing tuna from over 41 suppliers around the world, in which top 5 largest suppliers are Ecuador (with the market share of 21 percent), Philippines (23 percent), Papua New Guinea (12 percent), the Netherlands (11 percent) and Vietnam (9 percent).

Germany sourced fresh tuna from developing countries, making up 40 percent of total imports by the country. Between 2006 and 2011, fresh tuna volume originated from developing countries to Germany reported the decrease of 86 percent. To compensate for the reduction, Germany boosted importing tuna from EU’s member countries.

However, frozen tuna imports into Germany from developing countries witnessed the increase of 40 percent to 63 MT in 2011 from 45 MT in 2009. Developing countries supplied 33 percent of frozen tuna to the market. Since 2007, Vietnam and Indonesia have been two leading suppliers of frozen tuna to the market. Besides, Germany also imported the item from other developing countries after being processed in the Netherlands. Developing countries mainly exported yellowfin tuna, albacore and bigeye tuna to German market.

At present, Germany only produces processed tuna products on the small scale. Tuna processors in the country mostly import raw tuna (in the form of steak) for processing. Imports of steak tuna by Germany occupied 40 percent of the country’s total dried/frozen/live/fresh tuna imports. However, most of the items are re-exported to the Eastern European countries.

After decline in 2010 due to low tuna consumption, tuna imports into Germany have kept rising with the growth. Total tuna imports into the country in 2013 reached more than 76.3 thousand MT, worth by US$429 million. In which canned tuna (HS code 16) is the main import item, making up 97 percent of the total imports per year. Tuna imports into the country in 2014 are expected to remain positive growth.