The Russian government is working with seafood retailers and producers to seek a way to enhance domestic demand for Russian-caught seafood.
Russia has been faced with an excess supply of seafood since late 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led China to drastically tighten its imports of Russian seafood. Prior to the move, China accounted for 60 percent of Russia’s market for pollock.
The closure of the Chinese market has had a dramatic on Russia’s seafood exports. China has been supplanted by South Korea as Russia’s top export destination for seafood, and Russian authorities and fishing firms have initiated a global pollock marketing campaign called “The Russian Fish.”
Domestic consumption of pollock in Russia is low – typically no more than 130,000 MT – and consumption has been falling for years, Fishery Union President Alexander Panin told news agency Regnum. Russia’s per capita consumption of seafood was 20 kilograms in 2020, but Panin said that calculation was based on volume of raw materials sold, not sales. Panin said he estimates per capita consumption is just 13 kilograms, and that that figure has decreased by 27 percent in the last seven years.
Read more:
https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/russian-government-retailers-seeking-ways-to-boost-domestic-demand-for-fish