July 25, 2006

US catfish sales go down as imports go up

US processed catfish is 17 percent down from last year even as prices paid to producers were slightly higher than those a year ago.

The average price paid to producers of 80.7 cents a pound for June 2006 was 8.6 cents above a year ago.

Net pounds of processed fish sold for the month went down 14 percent from the same month in 2005.

Sales of fresh fish, which accounted for a third of the catfish market, was down 13 percent from June 2005 at 7.72 million pounds. Frozen fish sales, at 14.0 million pounds, also went down a similar level at 14 percent from a year ago and accounted for the other two-thirds of fish sales.

On the other hand, freshwater imports of frozen, boneless catfish fillets for May 2006 went up 23 percent from last year.

Two-fifths of all imports were from Vietnam, while nearly a third comes from Thailand. The rest are from mainly Asian countries.