Galician seafood is no longer for feasting on

Not for two bits, not for twenty: Galician seafood gets pricier and scarcer

Galician seafood was never cheap, but there was a time when a summer visitor could treat themselves without breaking the bank. That time is gone. In the height of August 2026, the shellfish industry is facing a perfect storm: historic mortality rates after a winter of storms, a labour shortage and tourist pressure that is sending demand soaring. Clams and cockles are scarce, and prices have gone through the roof.

A crisis that is not just a bad summer
The El Mundo article highlighting the sector's crisis this week reminds us that this is no one-off episode. The winter left entire stretches of shellfish beds empty, with mortalities beyond living memory. On top of that comes a structural problem: no generational renewal in a tough, poorly paid trade, just as mass tourism pushes demand ever higher. The result is that products that used to be seasonal and local have become luxury items.

Eighties nostalgia versus reality
Two opposing views are creeping into the economic debate. Some argue the headline is an exaggeration: going decades without cheap seafood, they say, is nothing new this summer. And there are those who remember the golden age: in the late 80s and early 90s, in Vigo you could enjoy oysters and cockles for a pittance, washed down with cloudy Ribeiro wine and finished off with a smuggled Marlboro. That era ended 35 or 40 years ago, and the price hikes are not a passing phase: this is the new normal.

If the industry cannot solve its labour shortage and the pressure from tourism, the idea of "stuffing yourself with seafood" will live on only in the memory of the old guard. And if you want seafood, you'll have to pay for it. Or look to the third world, where some people still find affordable prices. Meanwhile, mussels — not seafood, according to purists — hold the line in the canneries as the last bastion of abundance.