Looks like it's going to be a hot summer!

In the bass and bream industry, both water temperature and prices are on the rise.

Looking at our latest forecast and trade data we still see a continuation of the overall trend we have been seeing in the market for roughly the past 12 months. Which is, a high and increasing supply of seabream and a decreasing supply of seabass. Due to the bass supply shortage, bass prices continue to rise and it looks like we'll be seeing record high prices this summer. Bream prices, despite the growing supply volumes, are also high.

If we look at the export statistics of the two major producing countries, Turkey and Greece, we see this trend confirmed. Export volumes of seabream from Turkey to the EU are at record high levels, year to date. The exported volume is 20% higher compared to 2019 (30% higher than 2020) whereas prices have not suffered and are still above 2019 levels. Exported volumes of bass are 25% lower than in 2019 which are resulting in price levels far above levels we have seen in the last years.
Furthermore, in Greece, we see that seabass export is at similar volumes as last year, but the export volumes of seabream are up 20-30% compared to the last two years.

In the sales of aquafeed to bass and bream farmers, we see a continued increase in feed sales, at an all-time high level in Greece and Turkey. Feed sales are picking up and are at record high levels as well. However, due to rising and above-average water temperatures, cages are full of fish which are leading to reduced feeding ratios by farmers to fulfil market demands for fish in sizes and volumes. This means that biomass has been building up but biomass growth is slowed down at the moment.

What does this entail? Will this lead to higher harvest volumes? What about market availability for the fish? You can read more about the development in our monthly Seabass and Seabream report.

Image: Shutterstock by Kirill Zakabluk