Lent always starts after Fat Tuesday and ends before Easter which means the upcoming Lent will run from February 22nd to April 6th 2023.

There is always more pressure on the supply of seafood for Lent as this is the time of year when fish and other seafood are consumed instead of other meats.

Sales during Lent have been reported to increase up to 20 percent over the 40 Days before Lent, and consumers typically purchase more seafood for the week instead of just on Fish Fridays.



Although most plants are not currently running at full production capacity AND waiting on future orders, Chinese New Year is on January 21st so plant closures are just around the corner.



This means that even if there are less COVID restrictions on processing plants and everything fully opens back up, orders after Chinese New Year may still hit a bottleneck as some workers won’t return after the holiday - and there is the potential for even less workforce if the easing of COVID restrictions leads to even more waves of infections.

Our recommendation is to get your Lent programs sorted now, and to have a Plan-B in case you run into major delays.

Although it is still a Buyer’s market and shipping lines are in good shape, the perfect play may be to secure access to product domestically all while having production on the go.



This is a developing story as we continue to gather updates from China so keep tuned-in by subscribing to the Tradex Foods "3-Minute Market Insight"

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