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Executive Summary
About this report
Shrimp are the animal most commonly farmed for food, with 230 billion alive at any point in time. Since 2021, several groups have worked to secure substantial shrimp welfare commitments from around 15 major retailers across the UK, France, and the Netherlands[1].
To understand what percentage of the supply chain these commitments affect, we estimate the number of shrimp affected by commitments established in the UK. We also estimate the number of farmed shrimp sourced in Spain and France, because preliminary data checks suggest these are Europe’s largest farmed shrimp markets (Shrimp Insights, 2024; Moulange et al., 2024).
The European overview presents the aggregate picture and gives comparisons across the three countries we analyzed. Country-specific analysis follows in three companion reports—one each for Spain, the UK, and France—each containing the full detail on market size, company estimates, uncertainty, and methods for that country.
These reports present preliminary analyses for these countries. We aim to share more of our underlying data and methods, and potentially estimates for more countries in the future.
Summary
- Largest country-level market: Of Spain, the UK, and France, we estimate that Spain has the largest concentrated retail market at approximately 3.59 billion shrimps/yr (France ~3.49B; UK ~2.51B).
- Largest domestic retailer: The largest single domestic retailer footprint we found is for Mercadona in Spain, estimated to source ~948 million shrimp per year.
- Largest multi-national retailer: Accounting for multi-national footprints, Carrefour is the largest shrimp retailer that sells in any of our focus countries at around 2.5 billion shrimp per year worldwide. Of these, ~877 million are sold in some of our focus countries (Spain ~338M, France ~539M; Carrefour do not sell in the UK)
- Market concentration: in all three countries we analyzed, market concentration is high, with the top few retailers sourcing the majority of shrimp in the country. In the UK, three retailers account for ~52% of shrimp, in Spain ~48%, and in France ~64%.
- In all three countries, the top retailer accounts for between 18%–26% of the shrimp concentrated retailer market in that country.
- Policy coverage: Across the 13 companies with published welfare policies in our focus countries, we estimate roughly ~1.86 billion farmed shrimps per year are covered in our focus countries once all policies are fully implemented (UK ~1.43 B; France ~418 M; Spain ~45 M).[2] Across these companies’ full worldwide footprints, coverage extends to roughly ~2.82 B shrimps/yr.
- We estimate that, across the retailers in our dataset, up to 222 thousand broodstock shrimp may be needed to produce all of the shrimp in these retailers’ domestic supply chains (up to 614 thousand for their worldwide supply chains)[3]
- Established welfare commitments are often for only part of a retailer’s shrimp supply. Commitments vary in their coverage of the retailer’s supply chain, often only applying to specific locations, specific species, and often only own-brand shrimp products. If every established commitment were extended to its full worldwide footprint, all relevant species, all products — coverage would extend by roughly ~4.18 B additional shrimps/yr[4].
- Company-level shrimp estimates may change by more than 10% per year: General retail market shares vary by an average of 5% per year (per our own estimates), and some project a 7% CAGR for the shrimp market worldwide. Additional change may come from changes in shrimp-specific competitive positioning and product development.
Overview of country-level results
Table 1: Overview of country-level results.
| Country | Apparent consumption (farmed shrimps, tonnes/yr) | Market size (individuals/yr) | Species breakdown (% of farmed) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total market | Retail market | Concentrated retail market | Mapped retailers | P. vannamei | P. monodon | ||
| Spain | 63,179 | 5.32 B | 3.99 B | 3.59 B | 3.18 B * | 96.7% | 1.4% |
| UK | 47,281 | 3.98 B | 2.79 B | 2.51 B | 2.44 B | 81.2% | 16.5% |
| France | 68,999 | 5.81 B | 4.65 B | 3.49 B | 2.47 B | 88.4% | 11.0% |
| Total | 179,459 | 15.11 B | 11.43 B | 9.58 B | 8.09 B | – | – |
* For Spain, we mapped retailers and one distributor, so we accounted for overlap between distributors and retailers, who may be sourcing and selling the same shrimp
Read the country-level reports
- Our estimates do not currently cover the Netherlands as we aim to focus on the largest farmed shrimp markets. This excludes two retailer commitments from our dataset. ↑
- These estimates are for shrimp within a retailer’s supply that could be affected by corporate welfare policies (like electrical stunning commitments), so they exclude broodstock shrimp that might be covered by eyestalk ablation-free commitments. ↑
- These estimates do not account for potential overlap (e.g., a female broodstock shrimp could have had young shrimps that went to different retailers in our dataset. In this case, we likely double count these broodstock in our estimates) ↑
- Expansion estimates use country-wide own-brand fractions, not company-level data. See Methods section in the international report for more detail. ↑