RECENT TRENDS IN SALMON PRICE VOLATILITY

Since the start of intensive salmon farming, salmon has become an increasingly cheaper source of protein. Salmon has transitioned from a relative luxurious food item to a staple part of everyday diets. For most of the 1980s and 1990s the price of salmon fell consistently both in nominal and real terms. The price decline was caused by steady improvements in productivity, reducing unit production costs (Asche, 1997, Tveteras & Wan, 2000; Guttormsen, 2002; Vassdal, 2006; Asche et al., 2007; Asche, 2008; Asche et al., 2009b). Along with improvements in productivity salmon has enjoyed strong demand growth (Asche et al., 2011). However, since the early part of the last decade prices seem to have leveled out and even increased. In some sense demand growth seems to have caught up with productivity growth. Although productivity still increases it appears to have slowed down relative to demand growth (Vassdal & Holst, 2011)