While the amount of fish sold in Belgian ports last year rose to 13,217 tonnes, the price of fish in Belgium has not decreased, De Standaard reports. This is backed up by Statbel's figures, which set the average price of fish sold per kilo at €6, a 17.7% increase from the year before.
The Flemish newspaper wanted to investigate the success of Belgium fish by querying some of the country's fishmongers and fishers. They attempted to explain how these price rises occurred at the same time that the fishing industry made €79.5 million in profits last year. Most respondents agreed that the persistently high prices are down to the Dutch market.
Danny Decroos, a fishmonger in Ghent, explained that since the Dutch fish auction Den Helder had closed down, fishmongers from the Netherlands had increasingly travelled to Belgian auctions. This pushed prices higher as the Dutch demand for Belgian fish grew. Prices continued to rise during the energy crisis.
Flemish fisherman Dany Vlietinck explained that fewer Dutch vessels had set sail in 2022 due to their boats "simply being too expensive" in terms of energy consumption. On the other hand, Belgian regulations required the country's fishers to adopt less energy-intensive vessels in recent years, while Dutch fishers had focused on purchasing larger boats.
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The increased presence of the Dutch in Belgium's fish market has put pressure on Belgian fishmongers and seen consumer prices in Belgium go up. Decroos explained that there is no way around this.
On the question of which types of fish were the most popular in Belgium, sole came out on top and accounts for over half of the total weight of fish sold last year. But squid has also become more popular, its sales rising over 103% last year – by far the largest increase for any type of fish.
The report attributed this rise to the growing popularity of Belgian squid in Mediterranean countries such as Spain and Italy, making the molluscs Belgium's largest fish export.
