The latest grocery market share figures from Kantar Worldpanel has shown that chilled fish continues with solid value and volume growth in the 12 weeks to 24th February.

In the latest meat, fish and poultry (MFP) market update, the renaissance of chilled fish continues with solid value and volume growth ahead of grocery overall.

Nathan Ward, business unit director, MFP, explains: “Volumes are more than value, with added-value fish the only category seeing a volume decline.

“Natural is the biggest driver of the category and is key to the growth we see overall. As we’ve identified in the past, the performance of salmon is significant, accounting for 58% of all sales in natural and almost two-thirds of smoked sales.”

The growth of salmon is working with other key species in driving forward volumes in natural and turning around the inflation base losses of last year.

Smoked is said to be another key growth area and has seen 200,000 more shoppers driving growth.

“With a reported potential rise in salmon prices around the corner, we might see the growth here fall back slightly in upcoming months.” Ward adds.

Pork and chicken are the leading proteins in the fresh primary category, growing volume ahead of value.

“Pork has seen the traditional cuts of chops and leg roasts decline, but the growth for steaks and shoulder roasting joints driving the protein forward. The pork sector appears to be quite price sensitive with all of the main cuts cheaper, despite inflation in MFP overall.” said Ward.

The run up to Easter has already begun with eggs in store, so there is a hope that the late Easter helps stimulate volumes over the next months.

With a decision on Brexit also around the corner, Kantar questions if will there be a surfeit of products previously exported, or will we suffer in the categories where we depend on imports?

The next market update will be in four weeks’ time.