Export prices for pink salmon roe continue rising
In the second half of September 2021 the Russian producers dramatically increased their prices for frozen pink salmon roe from the new season. Quite expectedly, the sellers again commanded very tight prices, showing no willingness to lower prices for the Japanese and other buyers, reports Megafishnet.com.
In all likelihood, such position is still quite justified, since in the first series of sales, which was held in the middle of the third week of September, a significant part of product lots on offer were not sold even at the minimum price. But in the second series, which was held at the end of the working week, prices were higher than expected.
According to Japanese sources referred to by FishNet, on September 22 sales totalled ca.1,000 metric tons, which were divided into 25 lots of approximately 40 tons each. The seller’s main condition was minimum US$32.00/kg (CAF Japan). And, far from all buyers agreed with this condition, therefore more than 60% of the total volume of the supply on offer, according to some estimates, was never sold out.
According to some market experts, the restrained reaction of a significant part of Japanese buyers to the Russian offers was caused not only by the fact that even at the minimum price of US$32.00 per kg, the prices for ready-to-eat sieved caviar from this raw material would rise to the level of 6000 yen/kg or more, which can be quite risky from the point of view of the activity of the consumer demand. Some Japanese buyers seriously counted on price softening from the Russian producers for the simple reason that the total supply volume, mainly pink salmon roe, should already reach the level of 5.5 thousand metric tons or more by the end of September -almost twice as much as the supply of Russian products to Japan for the 2020 season, almost as much as the supply of the 2019 season and only half as much as the record high production of frozen pink salmon caviar of the 2018 season.
Nevertheless, on September 24, when the well-known Gidrostroy company with a good reputation on the Japanese salmon roe market conducted its sales, prices, despite all the activity of Russian offers, rose above US$32.00/kg. With reference to the Japanese participants of this auction, the entire proposed volume of almost 320 tonnes was successfully sold, and the prices for pink salmon roe reached the range of US$32.50-34.10/kg. In this regard, market experts note that after such results of the previous week at auctions scheduled for the middle of the closing week of September, which will cover those 600-650 tonnes remaining unsold from the auction on the previous week, prices will also rise above US$32.00/kg.