Russia's salmonid imports rise 14.4% to 38,100 tonnes in first half of 2026

Imports of salmonids into Russia reached 38,100 tonnes in January–June 2026, an increase of 14.4% year on year, according to estimates by the All-Russian Association of Fisheries Enterprises, Entrepreneurs and Exporters (VARPE). The figure was published by Kommersant in an article written by VARPE president German Zverev.

Zverev argues that the driver is not a shortfall in domestic supply but the more advantageous market positioning of foreign product. In his account, Russian harvesters ceded part of their home market to imports because of how the fish is processed, presented and sold, not because there is too little of it.

From salting to block freezing

Over more than a century of Far Eastern salmon fishing, processing technology moved through three stages: salting, then canning, then smoking. Balyk and red caviar were the signature products of the Soviet fishing industry. Industrial-scale freezing of salmon for further processing arrived only in the 1970s, when large-tonnage freezer trawlers entered service and changed the production model of the sector.

In the early 2000s plate quick-freezers came into wide use at shore-based salmon plants as well. The technology works by compressing fish in trays. Pink salmon frozen into blocks looked markedly different from the product that entered the Russian market at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries: chilled Norwegian salmon. Russian harvesters had spent decades cultivating red fish as a premium benchmark, Zverev writes, and then discovered that the market had stopped being their protected profit reserve.

Atlantic salmon's 215-fold expansion

Imports of Atlantic salmon grew from 5,700 tonnes worth $12 million in 1996 to 215,100 tonnes worth $2.58 billion in 2013 — a 215-fold increase in volume over twenty years. The first wave of demand came from HoReCa. Norwegian salmon was simpler to work with than pink salmon: a few minutes on the grill produced a finished hot dish, and it became the most sought-after ingredient for sushi, which was spreading rapidly in Russia at the time.

Until 2014, Norway accounted for between 31% of supply volumes, in 1996, and 87%, in 2003, and for as much as 89% of value. After 2014 the volumes fell sharply, to 93,900 tonnes in 2015. By 2016 the supply base had been reoriented toward frozen Atlantic salmon and coho from Chile, the Faroe Islands, Turkey and Armenia, with the total at 79,700 tonnes. Between 2017 and 2021 imports held within a range of 74,000 to 111,000 tonnes.

2025 marked a post-2013 record

In 2022, sanctions pressure and disrupted logistics chains pushed imports down again, to 89,300 tonnes. The recovery resumed immediately afterwards: 108,200 tonnes in 2023, 109,100 tonnes in 2024 and 118,600 tonnes in 2025 — the highest level since 2013.

According to Zverev, the Far Eastern salmon fishery has to a significant degree lost the domestic market. Its remaining share sits mainly in the salted, smoked and dried segments, and in caviar. At the same time, he says, current market trends create workable openings for Russian producers.

The technology agenda

• a move from block freezing to individual freezing;
• more processing carried out directly in the fishing areas;
• more sophisticated processing and frozen-storage technologies;
• improved set-net fishing techniques.

Handling quality is part of the same problem. Bruising on pink salmon or chum caused by compression during the catch and during transport in live-fish carriers also damages the consumer reputation of domestic salmon, Zverev notes.