Seafood in retail
In 2024, around half of the seafood purchases by Italian consumers were made at supermarkets, and this is the case both in terms of value and volume. There is also an underlying trend where discounters keep increasing in value and volume shares, while traditional stores are decreasing. The rest are relatively stable during the whole period between 2021 and 2024.
Italy’s retail market consists of a mixture of international chains and local Italian chains. For seafood, the most important supermarkets are Carrefour, Conad, Esselunga, Coop and Familia, while discount chains consist of both Eurospin and Lidl.
Market shares for individual retailers
41% buy seafood at Conad.
Italian buyers of seafood visit Esselunga more times per year, than other retailers, and naturally penetration is lowest here, likely due to Esselunga having fewer stores than other retailers.
41 % of Italian households choose to buy seafood from Conad and the retailer claims the top spot for seafood sales in terms of value shares. For salmon, Conad and Esselunga are the two largest, due to a fall of 2 % in value share between 2023 and 2024 for Esselunga.
Baccalà sales in Italy show that Coop is the top retailer, with an increase of 2 % in baccalà sales between 2023 and 2024. Coop is also the largest retailer for stockfish, and while Conad was the largest in 2023, a decrease of 5,1 % drops them down to number two. The drop in value shares for Conad is picked up by retailers outside the ones covered in figure 17.
Home consumption numbers in retail for stockfish, baccalà and salmon
The data presented in the figure 18 above, covers the purchases made by private residential households in Italy, covered in a panel that replicates the Italian demographics. Household panels will never cover 100 % of the market, but it’s the best available option to get an overview of home consumption. MAT numbers are presented in figure 18, and cover figures for the previous year, meaning that “2025P02” covers the period from March 2024 to February 2025.
The overall trend is that the decline in volumes goes hand in hand with the increasing prices for stockfish. This has also led to a gradual decrease in penetration ending at around 3 % in February 2025.
During the three years analysed, there is a decrease in average number of trips to the store per month to buy baccalà and less volume each time. This has led to a slight one-year decline and a more significant two-year decline for the category.
The only category that increases in volume for both compared to 2023 and 2024, is Salmon Natural Fresh, hugely driven by the Italian consumer opting to purchase this almost one more time each month (0,8) compared to two years ago. The convenience trend has a major influence here, where introducing new formats that allows consumers to eat and enjoy salmon in a busy schedule has been a game changer.
The Salmon Smoked category saw a one-year increase in volume of 5 %, with a declining price of 3 % in the same period.
Demographics in retail
One way to identify the core consumer of a given product is by using a buyer index. This index is calculated by dividing the share of buyers by the share of households and multiplying it by 100. If these shares match, the index is 100. If the shares of buyers are larger than those of households, the index exceeds 100, and vice versa.
This means that if the age group 65+ makes up a large part of the households in the panel, it would make sense that they also make up a large share of the buyers, and not necessarily outperforms the index.
To simplify, we assume that an index below 80 for a given product means that that group underperforms, while an index above 120 for a given product is outperforming the index.
In figure 19 the group aged 65 and over makes up around 30 % of the panel but accounts for over 60 % and 55 % of stockfish and baccalà buyers respectively. In contrast, the group aged 35 to 49 comprises the same percentage of households as the 65+ group but represents only around 8 % and 15 % of stockfish and baccaà buyers.
This means the two youngest groups severely underperform for both stockfish and baccalà, while the oldest group outperforms for the same products.