The parasite problem is only the start of it...
Bad news for salmon lovers: the price of the popular fish is going up.
"Consumers will have to pay more for salmon in the future than they've done so far," Paul Aandahl, an analyst at the Norwegian Seafood Council,told Bloomberg News.
The reason for the price increase is a confluence of factors, including an outbreak of sea lice among Norway's salmon farms. As a result, salmon production in Norway-which is the world's largest producer of the fish-is expected to fall 5 percent in the first part of 2016.
The jump in price is pretty astonishing. Since October, the cost of Norwegian salmon that's being exported to other countries spiked as much as 53 percent to $3.25 a pound-the highest price in three decades,according to Bloomberg.
Those prices are expected to hit $5.30 a pound this year and $5.50 a pound by 2017, according to Kolbjiorn Giskeodegard, a senior analyst with Nordea, a financial services company in Stockholm, Sweden. And if Norway raises its prices, then other salmon producing nations--such as Chile, Scotland and the U.S.-will follow suit.
Remember, that's what wholesalers pay; the increase will hit the consumer when more expensive salmon turns up at grocery stores, restaurants and sushi joints. In some places, the price has already climbed. Bobby Unwin, a fishmonger in London, told Bloomberg he's raised his prices to customers 3% to 4% in the last couple months.
Paul Aandahl, with the Norwegian Seafood Council, doesn't expect growth in production-and therefore relief on the price of salmon-for at least the next two years.
The sticker shock will be particularly harsh because salmon's been so cheap lately. Last year, Norway exported the most salmon ever,Bloomberg pointed out. At the same time, the European Union put in place a ban on exports to Russia because of its activity in Ukraine. That meant a nation of nearly 145 million people was not able to buy salmon from Norway, flooding both Europe and the U.S. with tens of thousands of tons of cheap salmon, whetting the public's appetite for more. "Prices in the key European and US salmon markets fell 10 to 20 percent in 2015, mainly due to massive oversupply," Giskeododegard said.
One alternative to salmon is arctic char for its taste and texture, although the price difference might be negligible. Other fish high in omega-3-the fatty acid that helps make salmon such a healthy choice-are mackerel, trout, herring, tuna and sardines, among others.
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