For Pollock specifically, Russia's "A" season harvest is stronger than last year.

In the Far East, almost 500,000 metric tonnes have been harvested.

Despite what looks to be another strong Pollock season for Russia heading into 2024 with a Total Allowable Catch of 2.285 million metric tonnes, none of this new season Pollock will make its way into the U.S. market due to the U.S. ban on Russian-origin Pollock.



For the EU market, it appears this will translate to higher availability and cheaper supply of twice frozen Russian Pollock from China.

Pricing reports out of Russia indicated that fresh frozen pollock raw materials in the Far East fell in price since the beginning of the year to 95 rubles per kilogram - which is approximately $1000 U.S. per metric tonnes (or $0.45/lb).

This is inline with the latest report out of our China office before they closed for the Chinese New Year holiday.

With that in mind, at the time of this report, China offices should start to be coming back online from holiday closures.

At the same time, Lent started on February 14th and runs until March 28th. Seafood sales during Lent have been known to increase up to 20 percent over the 40 days before Lent, and that consumers typically purchase more seafood for the week instead of just on Fish Fridays.



Our recommendation is to secure your Alaskan Pollock requirements as there will be a supply constraint for Alaskan raw materials between the demand for domestic processing and Chinese reprocessing.

As reported in a previous episode, Chinese plants are said to be preparing to increase their purchases of US raw material.

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