Chris Loew

Tokyo, Japan-based retail firm Seven & i Holdings is fending off a buyout offer from Laval, Quebec, Canada-based convenience store company Alimentation Couche-Tard by considering a competing buyout offer from a member of its own management and spinning off business units.

Seven & i Holdings, which owns the Ito-Yokado, York-Benimaru, and 7-Eleven Japan supermarket chains, achieved total sales in its 2023 fiscal year of JPY 17.78 trillion

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Osaka, Japan-based Nissin Foods is offering a plant-based eel product as one of several prizes in a marketing campaign the firm has dubbed “Cup Noodle Quest II,” which will run through January 2025. The campaign allows consumers to scan a QR code on the inside of Nissin Cup Noodle lids… Read More

The Tokyo Sustainable Seafood Summit (TSSS) recently held its 10th annual event, in which seafood industry representatives gathered to discuss ways to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and plastics in the ocean.  This year’s edition also covered topics new to the… Read More

Shigeru Ishiba, Japan’s new prime minister, gave the first speech of his campaign on 15 October at the Onahama Fish Market in Iwaki, where he vowed to revitalize the area’s maritime industry, among other goals – which now face a more difficult path after a snap election saw the country's Liberal Democratic Party lose its ruling coalition.

Ishiba was elected by the Japanese parliament to the position on 1 October.

During

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Tokyo, Japan-based frozen foods company Nichirei's FY 2024 report revealed the company had increased revenue but a low return on equity as it faced high raw material and energy prices.

Nichirei, which also handles logistics and trade for seafood and meat products in addition to its frozen food operations, reported net sales of JPY 680.1 billion (USD 4.6 billion, EUR 4.2 billion) for FY 2024, up 2.7 percent year over year. Profit attributable to

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Many Japanese fishing villages are in economic decline due to persistent low catch totals and rapid aging of their workforce, so in an attempt to revitalize these communities, the Japanese government is promoting marine-related tourism, which it refers to as “umigyo,” or maritime business, in several villages around the country.

Poor catch totals have plagued fishing operations targeting several important species in Japan and are

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Japanese catch totals of important seafood species have fallen dramatically, and climate change is the suspected cause, according to new reports, with catches of Japanese flying squid and Pacific saury suffering in recent years compared to historical averages. The Tokyo-based National… Read More

Japan’s recently released Fishery White Paper for the 2023 fiscal year showed that per-capita seafood consumption in the country continues to drop, leading Japanese seafood producers to turn toward exports as the domestic market becomes ever more unreliable.

The fiscal year 2023 report highlights that per-capita consumption of edible fish and shellfish sank to a new low of 22 kilograms; nearly half of the 40.2 kilograms per-capita consumed

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Nearly one year after Japan released treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japan has yet to find adequate replacement markets for its seafood exports to replace China, which Japanese seafood imports in response to the release.

Japan has stepped up exports to Hong Kong and the U.S., and Thailand has been the focus of its most recent push.

Japanese seafood retailer Uoriki, which is based in Tokyo, has created a joint

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Amid a severe shortage of trucking capacity in Japan due to a labor shortage and logistics inefficiencies, two of the country’s biggest seafood companies – Nissui and Maruha Nichiro – are collaborating with three frozen food companies Nichirei, Ajinomoto Frozen Foods, and TableMark to establish a new logistics system.

“The frozen food industry faces unique challenges, such as the labor load on workers due to the

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