The prices of Norwegian salmon have appreciated by 41% in Q1 2024 in comparison to those of Q1 2023. The three-month appreciation has been driven by week by week marginal price increases. By week 2, April 2024, for instance, the average price had increased to NOK 137.41 ($12.41) per kg, up from NOK 135.28 ($12.22).  Waning farmed salmon quantities is partially the reason for...

Virginia’s peeler crab season which officially kick-started on April 15, 2024 is registering high prices because crab numbers remain unknown. The season occurs at the close of the main US crab season, which runs from October to January. According to the President of Virginia Waterman’s Association, J.C. Hudgins, soft shell peeler crabs are currently quite expensive. They start at $100 a bushel for female specimen and $150...

As the U.S. lobster season in Maine gears up to its June start, customers are paying highly for lobster rolls.  Hailed as the expensive side of lobster dishes, lobster rolls were costing $30 per 4-ounce piece in mid-April 2024. A lobster roll is a sandwich the size of a hot dog made of toasted wheat bun stuffed with lobster meat.  2024 Price Tag Reflects 2022...

As global cocoa shortage continues, Ivory Coast has reported a 30% drop in cocoa shipments, year-on-year, between October 1, 2023 and April 14, 2024. This is even as Ghana is negotiating delivery postponements to counter lack of supplies. Government data on April 15, 2024 showed that Ivory Coast exported only 1.31 million metric tonnes in the just-concluded main cocoa season.  Between April 8 and...

Following a week’s delay, the snow crab season in Newfoundland and Labrador province in Canada is finally underway after a landing price increment. On April 14, 2024, the Fish, Food & Allied Workers (FFAW) announced a settlement with the Association of Seafood Producers (ASP) of CA$3 (US$2.18) a pound. Besides, the union will back its workers to find buyers for not only snow crabs...

Connecticut’s Attorney General William Tong has launched an inquiry into “food price gouging” among Connecticut grocers after a federal report exposé. This comes two months after President Joe Biden pressured American groceries to lower prices amid falling production costs. In its part, the Connecticut AG’s office announced on April 11, 2024 that families “are getting squeezed” by a persistent rise in food...

The 2024 rainbow trout season in Utah is registering a “higher than normal” abundance due to restocking and favorable weather. Reports by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) show that walleye trout in local reservoirs already measure 16 inches long. This indicates that the fish have grown half a dozen inches since their release into ponds 12 months ago....

Indore, the processing capital of India’a mangoes has registered a 20% retail price markup in a low-supplied seasonal start.  But this is most likely a temporarily phase as India expects a 14% jump in mango production in the 2023-24 season, ending June. For now however, traders in Indore in Central India who usually receive the very first southern dispatches are ruing quantity imbalance. They cited...

As the solar eclipse sweeps across North America on April 8, grapes-endowed Kern County in California looks to agrovoltaics to boost farm production and renewable energy.  Though currently enjoying only small-scale photovoltaic solar panel projects, the county has been thinking large-scale for over 6 months.  Since fall 2023, academic centers have been gauging the viability of solar investments, partially to improve sustainable farming....

Following the April 2, 2024 announcement of the discovery of a new variant of Coprinopsis cinerea, an edible mushroom in India, focus has shifted to identifying its culinary potential. Researchers at ICAR-Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPRI) first spotted the mushroom thriving on the husk of an arecanut. Since that discovery, Harish Rai Derla, a farmer from Puttur in Karnataka has become the first to cultivate the mushroom. So far, Derla has...