Nothing fishy about these seafood stats!

It can be fresh, frozen or prepared: the variety of seafood is remarkable. Further, the ways it can be prepped are endless—broiled, grilled, barbecued on a cedar plank, sautéed and more. It’s shrimply the best!

The summer fishing season is drawing to a close, and we can say that Statistics Canada got some good bites! This article presents a fine catch of data on Canada’s fishing industry and seafood preparation and packaging industry.

The big and small fish of businesses

Did you know that in June 2025, there were a total of 19,859 businesses in Canada’s fishing industry? Across Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador (5,618) and Nova Scotia (5,485) had the largest number of businesses. Combined, these two provinces accounted for 55.9% of all businesses (with and without employees) in the fishing industry.

Let’s now dive into the seafood preparation and packaging industry. In June 2025, there were 521 businesses in this industry in Canada. More than one in five businesses (21.5%) in this industry were located in Nova Scotia.

High tide for both sales and prices

Sales in the seafood preparation and packaging industry totalled $754.1 million in July 2025. This was down 17.6% from July 2024 ($915.1 million), but up 231.2% from July 1992 ($227.7 million), the first year data were collected for this series.

If we cast our line on prices for prepared and packaged seafood products at the factory gate, we see that they were up 0.6% in July 2025 from the same month a year earlier, based on the Industrial Product Price Index. Interestingly, according to the Consumer Price Index (not seasonally adjusted), prices for fish, seafood and other marine products purchased from stores increased 2.7% year-over-year in August 2025.

Crab and lobster exports, oh my!

Canada exports large amounts of fish and seafood, mostly to the United States. Here are some of the shellicious products people around the globe dig into.

In July 2025, Canada exported 12.1 million kilograms of frozen crabs ($345.6 million worth), almost two-thirds of which were from Newfoundland and Labrador. Since the beginning of 2025, 60.5 million kilograms of frozen Canadian crab ($1.7 billion) have been exported, with 54.0 million kilograms ($1.6 billion) going to the United States.

In addition, Canada exported 3.1 million kilograms of live, fresh or chilled lobsters ($79.9 million worth) in July. Nova Scotia was the source of over one-third of these exports. In total, 26.8 million kilograms ($738.6 million) of these lobsters have been exported since the beginning of 2025.

Data on the aquaculture industry coming soon

In the next few months, Statistics Canada will be publishing data from the 2024 Annual Survey of the Aquaculture Industry. This survey collects the financial and operating data needed to develop national and regional economic policies and programs. For data from 2023, consult the article “Aquaculture, 2023,” in The Daily.