A perfect storm threatens the future of fishmongers in Catalonia and in Spain as a whole. The data is worrying: in Catalonia one in four establishments have disappeared in the last six years, according to a report by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) prepared under the request of the Gremi de Peixaters de Catalunya. “We have been surprised with the results. We already knew that we were wrong, but not at this level,” laments Àlex Goñi, president of the Gremi.
The group is fighting to stay afloat in the face of the arrival of different threats, some shared with small businesses, in general. According to Gremi, neighborhood fishmongers are victims of fierce competition from supermarkets, the drop in consumer purchasing power, a change in eating habits, the lack of generational change, high bureaucracy and tax pressure.
It is significant that between high prices and changes in habits, such as cooking less at home or opting for simple dishes, fish consumption has fallen by more than 10% in the last ten years in both Catalonia and Spain.
“We are facing permanent closure if we do not turn around the business in a year. The margins are very low and the income has nothing to do with what we obtained a few years ago,” lament Manel Tort and Maria Redrado, a couple who run the last fishmonger open in the Poble-sec neighborhood, where decades ago there were six establishments.
The phenomenon is spreading to the entire territory. In Catalonia, 24% of points of sale have disappeared between 2015 and 2021, the latest results available that reduce the number of fishmongers open in this community to 1,473. The fall would not be understood without knowing the characteristics of the union, made up of a network of micro-businesses, which employ 3 to 4 workers and invoice around half a million euros per year. Their situation is increasingly precarious. “We had had three fishmongers but the financial crisis and the demanding regulations forced us to lower the shutters of two establishments. It was not profitable, especially if we had to hire salaried workers. Then the business would be absolute ruin,” laments Tort.
According to the Gremi de Peixaters, it is not reasonable that small neighborhood fishmongers have to face the same legal requirements as large supermarket chains. “We are subject to the same bureaucracy and the same health controls. It's a burden. Every day we have to record the temperature of the refrigerators and share the cleaning products that we use in our store," says the fishmonger, who remembers that the regulations are more demanding in the case of having salaried workers since it requires, for example, have changing rooms in premises where space is usually limited.
As reflected in the graph, taken from the CSIC report, supermarkets are gaining share with respect to traditional fishmongers, which for years have represented less than 20% of fish sales to the final consumer.
Bureaucracy is not the only reason that explains this phenomenon. “It is impossible to compete against establishments that open 12 hours a day and that have the resources to hire staff to open even on Sundays,” laments Tort, who demands more time control not only to compete under the same conditions but to reconcile at the family level.
The wholesale fish trade also shares these concerns. Àngel Máñez, president of the Gremi de Majoristes del Mercat Central del Peix de Mercabarna, warns of the damage caused by large chains: “They have more power to negotiate and have begun to dispense with distributors like us. In recent years, we know that they are already going directly to negotiate with the fish markets in the north of the country and abroad.”
Máñez assures that in the last ten years, Mercabarna has seen 15 distributors disappear and that now only 28 operate. “Ours is a hard job, which involves being cold and wet during the wee hours of the morning. Therefore, there is no generational change,” reasons the businessman, sharing this reflection with the owners of neighborhood fishmongers.
The closure of companies linked to fish would not be understood without talking about the prices of the product. Inflation has somewhat reduced after a few very high years – in 2023, the CPI for fish was 4% compared to 10% in 2022 – Goñi admits that “the perception that many consumers have is that fish is an expensive product.”
However, the president believes that “this is not entirely true since there are varieties that are affordable for all budgets.” The problem, he maintains, is that the consumer is increasingly unaware of the available offer. “It is very common for consumers who go to the fishmonger to only order salmon, monkfish and hake, fish that are not among the most affordable.”
At the same time, the group recognizes that the drop in consumer purchasing power, especially young people, is a threat to a product that has never been cheap, when compared to animal proteins, such as chicken. For this reason, the Gremi demands a reduction in VAT, which now stands at 10%. “It should be considered a basic necessity product and be taxed at 4% or even be exempt, as has happened with bread,” says Goñi.
The sector is also threatened by sociological factors, such as a change in the habits of the working population. “People cook less and less at home and when they have free time they prefer to go to a restaurant or prepare simple dishes,” laments the president of the Gremi, who celebrates the campaigns of the administrations that promote the consumption of fish and local trade.
The fall in purchasing power and the population's change in habits have caused fish consumption to be gradually reduced over the last decade. As the graph shows, annual fish consumption is below 160,000 kg in Catalonia, a drop of more than 10% in the last decade. In Spain, consumption was 887,448 million kg in 2022, a decrease of 15% if the results of 2021 are compared, according to the latest available from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Despite this, Spain continues to appear among the countries where fish is most consumed in the world, sharing the podium of the top 10 (varies depending on different rankings consulted) along with countries such as Japan, Norway, Iceland, Portugal, Maldives or South Korea. With the data on the table, which reflects the drop in consumption and the closure of fishmongers, it seems that this will not continue for long.
