A Helicopter View of Northwestern Europe’s Retail Landscape and the Players Driving It

13 Apr 2023

For quite some time, I thought Northwestern Europe (my current definition: Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands) wouldn’t be such a significant growth market for L. vannamei shrimp. However, recently imports in this part of Europe made a significant jump. While the wholesale market is probably responsible for a part of it, the retail market drives the larger volumes and is targeted by big Asian and Latin American suppliers that have grown their production volumes to such an extent that they look for partners able to absorb those volumes.

In this blog, I’ll look at the latest Northwestern Europe shrimp import data and discuss this market’s refreshed and frozen retail segments, their different characteristics and various players driving them. I’ll provide an overview of the supermarket chains active in Northwestern Europe and the companies supplying shrimp to them. While my focus is on L. vannamei, I’ll touch on other species when relevant.

In 2023, the Shrimp Blog is supported by: Inve Aquaculture, Taprobane Seafoods, DSM Animal Nutrition, Zeigler Nutrition, aquaconnect, Bioiberica, Megasupply, American Penaeid, and Omarsa.

Northwestern Europe and Its Shrimp Imports

The trade data described in this section combines HS030617 and HS160521/29. HS030617 includes all Penaeus shrimp (L. vannamei and P. monodon), but also wild-caught warmwater shrimp such as a variety of Asian pink shrimp. HS codes 160521/29 include both warmwater and coldwater shrimp as the two cannot be separated in these HS codes. However, coldwater shrimp under these HS codes likely amounts to a maximum of 30%.

Let’s first look at the relevant trade data. Figure 1 shows the size of the four countries in Northwestern Europe in terms of imports, exports, and estimation of domestic market size for warmwater shrimp in 2022. The vast majority of shrimp traded in the market are headless shell-on and peeled products (except in France, which will be explained below). Around 60% of the total shrimp supply and 75-85% of the supply to retail is L. vannamei. The remainder is a mix of farmed P. monodon and a range of wild-caught shrimp species. Combined, Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands imported around 250,000-260,000 MT of headless shell-on and peeled warmwater shrimp. We’ll look into each country in more detail below.

	Imports 2022	Import Growth 2018-2022	Exports 2022	Export Growth 2018-2022	Domestic market estimate
France	126,585 MT	19%	10,443 MT	-9%	116,142 MT
The Netherlands	93,124 MT	38%	67,858 MT	45%	25,266 MT
Germany	68,521 MT	21%	12,740 MT	0%	55,781 MT
Belgium	60,641 MT	39%	45,075 MT	29%	15,566 MT

Figure 1: 2022 warmwater shrimp import and export volumes (MT) under HS030617 and HS160521/29 and the trade balance

Source: ITC Trade Map.

The Netherlands

Imports into the Netherlands have increased by 38% over the past couple of years. The country is a hub for imports, reprocessing, and sales to the wider European market. In 2022, the Netherlands imported 93,124 MT and exported 67,858 MT. Only about a quarter of imports (roughly 25,000 MT) made its way to the domestic market. The rest was shipped to other European countries. The Netherlands exports mainly to Germany (almost 50%), Belgium (12%), and France (10%), but also to a wide group of other European countries. Of exports, 35,000 MT was raw frozen and 32,000 MT value added.

In 2022, Penaeus shrimp accounted for 50,000 MT of 67,000 MT of total raw frozen shrimp import volume. Of Penaeus shrimp, around 80% (40,000 MT) consisted of L. vannamei shrimp and around 20% of farmed and wild-caught P. monodon and other Peneaus species. While raw frozen L. vannamei was previously mainly sourced from India and Vietnam, Venezuela (9,000 MT), Ecuador (6,700 MT), and other Latin American suppliers (e.g. Honduras with 1,200 MT) are now catching up. If this trend continues, the majority of raw frozen L. vannamei imported into the Netherlands will soon originate from Latin America.

In terms of cooked and value-added imports into the Netherlands, the majority was North Sea shrimp (C. crangon): caught in the Netherlands, transported for processing to Morocco, and then shipped back to the Netherlands (almost 10,000 MT). Most of the cooked warmwater shrimp originated from Vietnam (8,200 MT), while other value-added products were mainly sourced from Indonesia (1,400 MT). Assuming that all cooked and value-added products from Asia and Latin America are L. vannamei, the total imports of that species into the Netherlands in 2022 was around 50,000 MT.

Germany

The German shrimp market hasn’t grown in a similar way as the Dutch market. Still, especially if we look back a bit further, growth can be found: imports grew from 49,860 MT in 2015 to 68,521 MT in 2022. Although some of that growth came from coldwater shrimp from Greenland and possibly the Netherlands, most was due to warmwater shrimp imports from the Netherlands and Asia. With 12,740 MT in 2022, Germany is not a major re-exporter. The domestic market size for warmwater shrimp was around 55,000 MT, most likely the largest consumer market for headless shell-on and peeled warmwater shrimp in Europe.

In the raw frozen segment, Penaeus shrimp accounted for around 75% of total imports into Germany in 2022. Raw frozen Penaeus originated mainly from Vietnam (8,300 MT, a mix of P. monodon and L. vannamei largely destined for retail), India (4,000 MT, a mix of L. vannamei destined for retail and wholesale and P. monodon mostly destined for wholesale), and Bangladesh (4,600 MT P. monodon mostly destined for wholesale). India’s share in the German market is most impressive as it doubled since 2020.

Germany has a relatively large market for cooked products. In 2022, its cooked and value-added imports consisted of around 75% warmwater shrimp. 5,900 MT was directly imported from Vietnam, and the largest volume was sourced from the Netherlands (10,000 MT, a mix of cooked coldwater and warmwater shrimp). Companies like Heiploeg and Klaas Puul, which we will discuss below in this blog, play an important role in driving these volumes.

Belgium

Although Belgium’s imports didn’t grow a lot between 2018 and 2021, in 2022 they jumped to 60,614 MT. Just like the Netherlands, Belgium is an import hub for products that are sold in other European markets. In 2022, Belgium exported 45,075 MT, while the domestic market for warmwater shrimp was only around 15,000 MT. Exports in 2022 consisted of around 35,200 MT of raw frozen warmwater shrimp and 10,000 MT of cooked cold- and warmwater shrimp. They were shipped mainly to France (almost 40%), the Netherlands (20%), and Germany (10%), but also to a wide group of other European countries.

Penaeus shrimp represented around 82% (40,700 MT) of total raw frozen imports in 2022. The remainder (around 9,000 MT) was wild-caught Asian pink shrimp. Penaeus shrimp was responsible for the jump from 2021 to 2022. Around 75% of Penaeus shrimp was L. vannamei, and 25% was P. monodon. L. vannamei was mainly imported from India (13,000 MT) and Vietnam (around 6,000 MT), but Ecuador has also drastically increased its raw frozen Penaeus shipments to Belgium, reaching 7,900 MT in 2022 from just 1,600 MT in 2018. India and Ecuador were jointly responsible for the lion’s share of the import jump from 2021 to 2022.

In 2022, imported cooked and value-added shrimp in Belgium mainly originated from Vietnam (4,000 MT), the Netherlands (3,000 MT), and a range of other countries. Although imports from the Netherlands might have included some coldwater shrimp, they primarily consisted of refreshed warmwater shrimp supplied by companies such as Heiploeg and Klaas Puul.

France

Why include France in a blog about Northwestern Europe? Because it’s the odd one out in Southern Europe. Contrary to most retailers in Spain and Italy, French retailers also sell significant volumes of peeled warmwater shrimp besides head-on shell-on. While for the frozen segment, peeled warmwater shrimp is mainly supplied by French importers, for the refreshed segment it is supplied by large reprocessors in the Netherlands and Belgium. Therefore, when discussing France, I’ll mainly look at the peeled products and not dig into the head-on shell-on market.

Let’s try to pin down the size of the peeled market in France. For the sake of simplicity, I assume that all of France’s imports from Asia in 2022 consisted of peeled warmwater shrimp (around 30,000 MT). And that at least 50% of imports of cooked and value-added shrimp from Belgium and the Netherlands consisted of warmwater shrimp (2,000 MT) and at least 10% of imports from Latin America was headless shell-on and peeled shrimp (7,000 MT). This adds up to around 40,000 MT of headless shell-on and peeled products in the French market, which makes it larger than the Netherlands and Belgium and just a little smaller than Germany.

Northwestern Europe’s Food Retailers

The European retail landscape is dominated by several German and French multinational organizations, although in each country a domestic retail chain generally maintains the top position. This section starts with a brief overview of the food retail markets in each of the Northwestern European countries.

Main retail organizations

Let’s first look at the complete European food retail market, which is valued at around €2tn with more than 300,000 retail shops across Europe. The market is dominated by multinationals from Germany and France (both part of my definition of Northwestern Europe), which operate supermarket chains in various European countries. Some of the largest groups are:

Schwarz Gruppe: a family-owned retail group. It’s Europe’s largest retailer and the fourth-largest retailer in the world. The group’s total turnover in FY 2020-2021 was around €125bn, about half of which came from its retail activities. It consists of the following supermarket chains:
1. Kaufland: operates around 1,400 stores in Germany and various Eastern European countries and had a turnover of around $20bn.
2. Lidl: one of the world’s largest discounters. Operates more than 11,000 stores throughout Europe and over 100 stores in the US. Had a turnover of around $100bn.
Aldi: another one of the world’s largest discounters. Founded by two brothers who later split the company into Aldi Sud and Aldi Nord. Combined, it operates more than 12,000 stores, mainly in Europe but also in the US and Asia. The turnover of the two groups combined was valued at around €100bn in 2022.
1. Sud: operates more than 7,000 stores, primarily in Germany and the US but also in 8 other European countries, Australia and China. Some of its supermarkets operate under the name Hofer KG. Turnover was around €76bn in 2022.
2. Nord: operates over 5,000 stores, primarily in Germany and France but also in 7 other European countries and the US. In the US, Aldi Nord’s subsidiary is Trader Joe’s. Turnover in 2022 was more than €25bn.
Rewe: Rewe and its subsidiaries operate around 6,000 stores in Germany and 3,500 in Austria and 12 other European countries. The group’s total turnover was around $85bn in 2022, but part of this revenue comes from tourism activities. Rewe and Penny are the company’s two largest supermarket chains. In Germany, they’re responsible for a 2022 turnover of around €37bn, and about $17bn internationally.
1. Rewe: operates more than 3,700 stores across Germany.
2. Penny: a discounter, operates over 2,200 stores across Germany. The supermarket chain also has around 1,500 stores in other European countries.
Edeka: the largest German retail chain, holding around 20% market share. Its total turnover in 2022 was reportedly around €70bn and as such it’s still among Europe’s largest retail organizations, even though it’s only active in Germany. Unites more than 4,100 stores under the Edeka brand and another number of stores as Spar Germany, Netto Marken-Discount, and Marktauf.
Carrefour: French multinational, operates close to 14,000 stores in over 30 countries on 4 continents. The group had a 2022 turnover of about €80bn. Around 50% of revenue is generated outside France, where the group is present in 5 European countries, 2 Latin American countries, 4 Asian countries, and 22 countries across Africa and the Middle East.
Les Mousquetaires: operates more than 4,000 stores across Europe, the majority of which are in France, and a couple of hundred stores in Portugal, Poland, and Belgium. Operates different brands such as Intermarché and Bricomarché. The group’s turnover in 2022 was around €55bn.
E.Leclerc: operates more than 700 hypermarket stores in France and on top of that more than 80 stores in 7 other European countries. Turnover of around €50bn in 2022.
Ahold Delhaize: has its headquarters in the Netherlands but owns supermarket chains in the Netherlands, Belgium, 6 other European countries, the US, and Indonesia. Total turnover was around €85bn in 2022, €55bn of which was realized in the US and €30bn in Europe. It owns the following supermarket chains:
1. Albert Heijn: market leader in the Netherlands. With more than 1,000 shops its market share surpasses 35%.
2. Delhaize: second-largest retailer in Belgium. Albert Heijn also has stores in Belgium, but it doesn’t compare to the more than 800 Delhaize stores in the country.
3. Foodlion: main supermarket chain owned by Ahold Delhaize in the US. Accounts for more than 1,000 of its close to 2,000 stores.