Pollock roe season results
The season is over, long live the season - our American colleagues might say, who collect almost all the roe, found in fish. For Russian fishermen, for whom the production of everything is determined by above-specified coefficients, to recognize today's pollock as contenting roe automatically means to hit the volume of fillet and HG production. Therefore, roe women go on vacation, and trawlers go to maintainance.
On July 15, a month later than usual, the final pollock roe auction took place in Busan this year. On this occasion, some conclusions can be drawn.
First, a few numbers. This season, 29295 tons of roe was sold through auctions out of 32365 produced (the second result in 30 years, by the way). This is more than in 2019 and 2020. The growth in production was caused primarily by the understanding that the American counterparts expected production failure, and it happened. Sixteen and a half thousand tons is not the worst result ever, but in this millennium the States produced less eggs five times only, and they have never had such a disastrous year in terms of revenue.
The hope to make money on other people's difficulties was generally justified. In terms of total revenue, it was not a record, but about 157% of last year. And it's not just about volume. The average price increased by 37% compared to last year and amounted to $ 6,759 per ton, though quality didn’t really improve.
The largest producer in terms of volume was Gidrostroy group, which acts at auctions under Pilenga brand, which has surpassed last year leader of the RFC by as much as 12 tons. They are followed with some margin by Okeanrybflot (known as Polluks), Norebo, Sigma, BAMR and Lenin Kolkhoz. All these companies, except for BAMR, sharply increased their production volume, mostly by an increase in the share of low grades. Japanese and Korean buyers differ in their assessments, whether the reason was just poor sorting or the fact that fishermen began to freeze sacks, which was previously dumped overboard or went to a fishmeal plant.
Perhaps it was precisely because the largest producers paid attention to non-standard grades that they were not included in the list of leaders at the average price. The top five included companies that produced less than 300 tons, and from the "giants" BAMR took 7th place, Polluks 8, Pilenga 10, Sigma 11, and RFC and Norebo - 25 and 28 out of 28 participants in the rating.
Traditionally, most Russian companies and some American hide from each other all commercial information on the sale of caviar, so for the analysis it was necessary to use the data of buyers who have few secrets from each other in this regard. In order not to stir up the mood, this article does not contain numbers and names of companies, but those who are interested can purchase a detailed report from Megafishnet.com.
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