New Bedford scallop auction shows 3.2x gap between U-10 and 20-30
The New Bedford auction cleared 68,705 pounds of scallops on 19 October, and 91.7% of that volume was 20-30 count. The U-10 lots that sold averaged US$35.75 a pound, 3.2 times the 20-30 average. A single session is the cleanest read available on a US sea scallop market that is short of large meats.
The Numbers
Prices come from the Buyers and Sellers Exchange, published daily by The New Bedford Light. The scallop figures were last updated on 19 October 2026, and every lot that day was Mid-Atlantic.
Total scallop volume: 68,705 pounds across five count sizes.
20-30 count: 62,977 pounds, average US$11.14 a pound, range US$10.50 to US$14.35. That is 91.7% of the day's volume.
10-20 count: 4,816 pounds at US$22.43, range US$21.65 to US$27.30.
30-40 count: 502 pounds at US$10.55 flat.
U-10: 278 pounds at US$35.75, range US$31.00 to US$38.30.
U-12: 132 pounds at US$31.75 flat.
U-10 and U-12 together came to 410 pounds, or 0.6% of volume.
Two outside data points frame that sheet. NOAA Fisheries awarded more than 1.5 million pounds of Atlantic sea scallops through its 2026 Research Set-Aside programme, and at an estimated US$16 a pound the allocation is expected to generate over US$25 million, with roughly US$6 million for research and US$19 million to participating harvesters, as Saving Seafood reported on 14 October. On 20 October, Undercurrent News reported that 2026-27 landings had moved past last year's mark.
That US$16 a pound assumption sits well below the U-10 auction average and well above the 20-30 average. Its position in the middle is the point. The programme values a blended basket, not the top of the grade ladder.
What It Means for Buyers
Large meats are the scarce item, and the sheet says so twice. Only 410 pounds of U-10 and U-12 cleared in a session, and those lots paid a 3.2x multiple over the workhorse 20-30 count. Anyone building a retail or foodservice programme around U-10 needs to accept that offers will be thin and the price will not negotiate down much. Dry-packed large meats are where the scarcity concentrates.
The 20-30 count is the opposite trade. Nearly 92% of the day's tonnage sat in one spec, with a US$10.50 floor and a US$14.35 ceiling. That is a wide band for a single count size, and it reads as a negotiating range rather than a price. Buyers taking volume in this grade have room to work, and differences in glaze, packing and grading explain most of the spread inside the band.
Do not read one session as a trend. Fewer than 70,000 pounds on one day, from one region, with no Georges Bank lots on the sheet, is a snapshot of what sellers chose to bring rather than a season average. The direction of travel still matters. Landings running ahead of last year, on a sheet dominated by small counts, points to a market where the small and medium grades carry the volume and the large grades carry all of the premium.
There is a substitution angle for buyers whose specifications allow it. Formed scallop meat and bay scallop fill volume slots at a fraction of the U-10 price, and half-shell Chlamys product covers the retail presentation end without competing for Atlantic large meats. In a market with a 3.2x spread, specification flexibility is worth more than another round of price chasing.
One caution on the headline number. A 3.2x gap between U-10 and 20-30 is wide, but it is not unprecedented at the start of a season, when large meats come in small lots and buyers pay for the privilege of being first. The test is whether the gap holds once Georges Bank product shows up.
What to Watch
The first Georges Bank lots appearing on the auction sheet, which will show how the northern grounds are producing.
Whether the U-10 premium holds above 3x the 20-30 average through the holiday pull.
The share of 30-40 and smaller counts, a proxy for how much small meat the fleet is landing.
NOAA's 2027 scallop projections and any in-season adjustment to the allocation.
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This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI and is published for general information only. It does not constitute trading, pricing, or investment advice, and readers should verify all figures against the original sources linked above before making commercial decisions. Content on this page is partly AI-generated. Easy Seafood makes no warranty as to its accuracy or completeness.
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