Norwegian exports of cod to Portugal rose by 9% year on year in 2016 to €271.4 million, totalling 48,603 tonnes, the Norwegian Fishing Council (Norge) said.
Portugal’s national dish is salted cod and there are said to be enough recipes to eat a different Portuguese cod dish on every day of the year. It is traditionally eaten boiled on Christmas Eve. Portugal’s biggest source of this delicacy is Norway.
According to Norge, exports of dried salted cod saw the greatest rise (10%), from €153.4 million in 2015 to €168.9 million in 2016, totalling 25,167 tonnes.
Exports of so-called green salted cod (sent to factories in Portugal to be dried) rose 9%, from €81 million to €88.6 million, to 18,919 tonnes. The remaining categories of cod (fresh, frozen and fillets) recorded a drop of 1%, from €14.1 million to €13.9 million, or the equivalent of 4,517 tonnes.
These figures make Norway Portugal’s largest supplier of cod. Average per capita consumption of cod in Portugal in 2016 was 6.5 kilos, and a total of 65,000 tonnes.
Norwegian cod comes from sustainable stocks in the Norwegian and Barents sea (Northeast Atlantic) which are jointly managed along with Russia.
Cod quotas since around 2015 have remained at around 890,000 tonnes per year, around half of which for Norway.
(N.Sethu)
