The EU's demand for shrimp imports has increased significantly! Head removal and value-added products are popular!

Although not a traditional market, Northwest Europe has seen good recent growth in shrimp imports. The growth in shrimp consumption is mainly due to the wholesale channel, but the retail market has also attracted a large number of sources, attracting the attention of shrimp companies in Asia and Latin America.

Four markets in Europe are the most attractive destinations for shrimp, including Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and France. Most of the shrimps traded in these markets are headless vannamei shrimp (except for the French market). According to statistics, about 60% of the shrimp supply is vannamei shrimp, of which 75-80% are from wholesale channels. The rest are black tiger prawns and wild prawns. Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands alone imported 260,000 tonnes of HLSO and peeled shrimp last year.

The Netherlands is now the European center for shrimp import and processing. In 2022, the Netherlands will import 93,124 tons of shrimp and export 67,858 tons, leaving about 25,000 tons for the domestic market. Among them, 35,000 tons of frozen raw shrimp were exported, and the rest were high value-added products. Previously the Netherlands mainly sourced frozen whiteleg shrimp from Vietnam and India, but now Latin American countries including Ecuador, Venezuela and Honduras are also flooding the market.

Last year, the Netherlands imported 9,000 tons of shrimp from Venezuela, 6,700 tons from Ecuador and 1,200 tons from Honduras. According to many Dutch shrimp buyers, the market share of Latin American shrimp is increasing and if this trend continues, Latin American white shrimp will soon dominate the Dutch market. In addition to raw white shrimps, the Dutch market also "sucks" a large number of shrimps with high added value.

Shrimp imports to the German market will reach 68,521 tons in 2022, a significant increase from 49,860 tons in 2015. The most popular product is warm water shrimp from Asia. Unlike the Netherlands, which is not in the direction of processing and re-exporting, Germany mainly imports shrimp for domestic consumption. The absorption capacity of the German warmwater shrimp market is about 55,000 tons, and it is the largest consumer of headless white shrimp in Europe. In addition to vannamei, Germany also imports frozen black tiger shrimp and value-added shrimp from Vietnam, India, and Bangladesh. Germany imported 5,900 tons of cooked shrimp directly from Vietnam last year.

Belgium suddenly became a destination for imported shrimp last year, with imports of 60,614 tonnes. Like the Netherlands, Belgium is also a processing center for shrimp processing throughout Europe. Vannamei accounted for 75% of Belgium's total frozen shrimp imports, the remainder being Asian tiger and wild shrimp. The main suppliers of Belgian shrimp last year were still India (13,000 tons) and Vietnam (6,000 tons). Currently, Ecuador also wants to enter Belgium, with shrimp supplies set to increase from 1,600 tons in 2018 to 7,900 tons in 2022.

French retail channels consume a lot of peeled shrimp compared to Spain and Italy. France imported about 30,000 tonnes of shrimp last year, up to 50% of which was cooked and value-added shrimp from Belgium and the Netherlands. At least 10 percent of imports from Latin America are headless shrimp (7,000 tons), bringing this total import volume to 40,000 tons, more than the size of the Dutch and Belgian markets.

From the last quarter of 2022, higher inflation leads to lower consumption, and the gas and energy crisis leads to higher storage costs in Western Europe. The economies of European countries had to deal with the crisis of the Russo-Ukrainian war, high oil, gas and commodity prices. These negative factors for exports continue to affect shrimp exports to the EU in the first months of 2023.