Something Fishy Is Going On in American Kitchens
Grocery shoppers are stocking up on a surprising amount of seafood. But it’s not enough to stave off pain in the industry from the pandemic.
Shoppers who perhaps rarely cooked seafood before are now putting salmon and other fish on their menus.
Photographer: David Williams/BloombergIf you could peek inside America’s cupboards and refrigerators, you’d see tableaus that capture changes wrought by the pandemic: Towers of paper goods, loads of comfort food, caches of upmarket coffee. You might also be surprised to see an unusual amount of seafood.
Frozen seafood sales at U.S. supermarkets and other food retailers rose 26% in the four weeks ended Dec. 27 from a year earlier, according to market research company IRI, far stronger than the 6% growth for consumer packaged goods overall. Fresh seafood sales rose 25% in the same period. That strong result wasn’t just a holiday binge: Since the onset of the pandemic, seafood sales growth has tended to outpace that of the grocery store as a whole by a comfortable margin.