Wild-caught tiger prawns have long been a lucrative Australian export, but in the past two years, the prices they fetch worldwide have dropped substantially.
According to the Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRCD), prices for Australian prawns dipped from a high of AUD 36.68 (USD 24.27, EUR 22.28) per kilogram in 2023 to as low as AUD 28.41 (USD 19.17, EUR 17.26) per kilogram in 2024.
That per-kilogram price drop has resulted in a 3 percent drop in the overall value of Australian prawns to AUD 484 million (USD 327 million, EUR 294 million) annually, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), which attributed the decline to lower catches and lower international prices.
According to ABARES, 4,464 metric tons (MT) of Australian prawns were exported globally in 2023; this year, the number is expected to drop to around 4,100 MT.
These downward trends have fishing companies encouraging Aussies to eat more prawns, instead of relying heavily on export markets.
Austral Fisheries Northern Prawn Division Operations Manager Bryan Van Wyck told the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) that the commercial fishing company already sells large quantities of prawns to Australians, but these domestic sales mostly comprise banana prawns, not the traditionally more lucrative tiger prawns.
Van Wyck also said tiger prawn export prices had dropped about 20 percent over the last two years and that aquaculture farming was partly to blame for the lower prices. Farmed fish, he said, are “bringing down the prices of everything else,” making it harder for fisheries that specialize in wild-caught fish to compete.
Tiger prawns are growing in domestic popularity, however, and are often sold at gourmet markets. Queensland Ocean World Seafood Market Owner Peter Adams said that he sold up to 300 kilograms a week of tiger prawns and that his customers preferred wild-caught prawns to farmed ones.
“We just think they give out the best product,” he said.