Salmon prices up 83% as disease blights fish farms

THE price of fresh salmon has jumped by up to 83 per cent from a year ago amid a surge in demand for healthy oily fish and a fall in supply.

Prices of 23 salmon products at Sainsbury’s rose by an average of 14 per cent last week alone. Other stores have also put up prices on salmon sourced from Scotland and Norway, after some farmed supplies were hit by lice infestations.

A 260g pack of two fresh boneless salmon fillets at Sainsbury’s is £4.25 – 21 per cent higher than a year ago. Its 330g pack of Basics Scottish salmon fillet is up by 42 per cent to £4.22. A 300g pack of its mild Scottish smoked salmon is up £7.50 to £9.25 in a year – a 23 per cent rise.

At Tesco, a 200g pack of smoked salmon is up from £4 to £4.95. And Asda’s 200g pack of ‘fishmonger’s selection’ boneless salmon fillets is up 83 per cent, from £2.35 to £4.29.

Research by analysts Brand View, published by The Grocer, found the price of 113 salmon products in major stores are up by an average of 12 per cent.

Doctors recommend two portions of fish a week – one of which should be an oily fish. Steve Bracken, of Marine Harvest, which has supplied Sainsbury’s own label salmon since 2015, said there had been ‘strong demand and a decline in global supply’.