Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2021

3 Landings into Scotland

In 2021, 283 thousand tonnes of sea fish and shellfish with a value of £438 million were landed into Scotland. This represents a one per cent decrease in tonnage and an eight per cent increase in real terms value from 2020.

Pelagic species accounted for 51 per cent of the tonnage landed into Scotland whilst demersal species made up 34 per cent and shellfish species 16 per cent. By value, 40 per cent of landings into Scotland were demersal species, 32 per cent were shellfish and 28 per cent were pelagic species. The differences in shares by tonnage and value reflect the differences in average prices per tonne (for landings by Scottish vessels) across the species types: shellfish sell at relatively higher average prices per tonne, whilst pelagic species receive the lowest average prices per tonne (Table 26).

Figures 1 and 2 show landings by all vessels into the eighteen Scottish port districts. The top three districts in Scotland by total tonnage landed were Peterhead (east coast), Shetland (northern island) and Scrabster (north-east coast). Peterhead is the single largest fishing port in the UK by tonnage and value of landing. Information on landings into all the Scottish districts can be found in table 32.