--- Salmon fishing in Russia’s Far East has entered the active stage and (at the time of reporting) current harvest totals for Russian Pacific Salmon reached 200,000 metric tonnes which is 2.5 times more than the pace of 2020.

Over the past week alone, the catch increased by more than 100,000 metric tonnes which is equivalent to fishermen catching an average of 20 thousand metric tonnes of Salmon per day.

Breaking down by species, 180,000 metric tonnes of Pink Salmon have been harvested followed by about 7,000 metric tonnes of Chum, 11,000 metric tonnes of Sockeye and a combined total of 347 metric tonnes for Coho, King, and Cherry Salmon.

According to Russian forecasts, they are now predicting this year’s harvest to exceed 460,000 metric tonnes which would be 57.5 percent higher than last year’s harvest of 292,000 but 8.5 percent lower than 2019’s harvest of 499,000 metric tonnes.

Although a large Wild Salmon harvest is good news, this particular high-yielding odd-year harvest potentially faces a cold storage bottleneck in the very near future.



As the logistics situation worsens and Russian trampers continue to be banned entry into China, both federal and local fishery authorities are voicing concern that the Salmon season in Kamchatka may run into a shortage of cold storage capacity.

In Kamchatka, fishermen are forecasted to harvest about 350,000 metric tonnes of Salmon this year, however the volume of onshore cold storage in the region is limited to about 200,000 metric tonnes.

Although Russia will find some relief in moving product to the EU, Japan, and Vietnam, if China continues to not import from Russia, there will be more supply of Russian caught Pacific Salmon than there are customers for the product.

As Pink, Chum, and Sockeye are the primary species harvested and produced by Russia, our recommendation is to contact Tradex Foods to develop a Russian Salmon sourcing strategy as there may be some unique and favorable opportunities here.

For Chum Salmon specifically, with Alaska’s Chum harvest looking like the run has already peaked, the market is likely to see about the same amount of Chum Salmon out of Alaska as last year where 8.5 million Chum were harvested.

Global Salmon production this year is forecasted to amount to 930,000 metric tonnes from all major Wild Salmon producing countries around the world.



Alaska continues to be the world's second largest Wild Salmon producer with 190 million fish forecasted to be harvested in 2021.

Expect spotty supply of Salmon out of British Columbia, Canada down the California as this region continues to see diminishing Salmon stocks.

Keep tuned in here as we continue to bring you the pulse on the Salmon market throughout the summer Salmon season.

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