The total volume of seafood sales in the UK fell to 354,856 metric tons in the 12 months ending July 21 this year -- a drop of 1.2 percent compared with the 359,011 metric tons sold a year earlier.
Despite this, consumers spent 3.4 percent more on fish over the same period, boosting the total value of seafood sales to £3.1 billion (€3.7 billion/$5 billion), according to the latest statistics from market research company Nielsen.
Once again, fresh fish was the only sector to see a rise both in volume and value, the report found.
Consumers spent 6.5 percent more on fresh fish over the year to reach a total spend of £1.8 billion (€2.1 billion/$2.9 billion), while volumes increased 5 percent to 152,797 metric tons, up from 145,487 metric tons a year earlier.
Conversely, frozen fish sales fell by both volume and value over the year, reducing 3.1 percent across the board. The value of frozen sales fell to £741.2 million (€879.3 million/$1.2 billion), while volume sold dropped to 123,934 metric tons.
Elsewhere, ambient fish took the biggest hit on volume, falling 8.7 percent to 78,126 metric tons, but value increased 2.5 percent to £523.6 million (€621.2 million/$840.1 million).
Overall, UK consumers still prefer to buy fresh fish rather than frozen or canned products, the research found, with fresh accounting for 59.3 percent of the market share, frozen 23.9 percent and ambient just 16.9 percent.
Salmon yet again was the top-selling species of fish by value but not by volume, missing out on the top spot to tuna.
By value, consumers spent by far the most on salmon, reaching £757.4 million (€898.5 million/$1.2 billion) -- up 8.2 percent year-on-year -- on volumes of 48,800 metric tons (up 5.3 percent year-on-year).
The second-largest seller by value was tuna.
Consumers spent £366.1 million (€434.3 million/$587.4 million) on tuna over the past 52 weeks – predominantly through canned products, which made up £331.9 million (€393.7 million/$532.5 million) of sales -- and sold 56,351 metric tons, making it the biggest selling fish in terms of volumes.
Despite selling the largest volume, tuna sales were still down 10.2 percent year on year, from the 62,750 metric tons that were sold a year earlier, the report said.
The remaining top 5 species sold in terms of volumes, included cod (39,247 metric tons), pollock (26,175 metric tons) and haddock (24,639 metric tons).
Meanwhile, the seafood market remained fairly stable in terms of share among retailers. Tesco was still the leader with 25.6 percent, followed by Sainsbury’s with 17.7 percent, while Waitrose and Aldi both grew their shares of the market slightly over the period by 0.6 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.