Mark Godfrey

Contributing Editor

Mark Godfrey is an Irish journalist covering the agriculture and fisheries sectors in Asia, with a focus on China. Proficient in Mandarin, he has frequently traveled across China's fisheries and aquaculture regions and learned the inner workings of China's corporate world during a nearly three-year stint at the Financial Times' “China Confidential” publication. He has also reported widely across Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union. He has educational certificates in agriculture and food science, as well as Mandarin.


Author Archive

Published on
August 20, 2024
The transparency of Chinese government data on its fishery sector has come under scrutiny in a new report from the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI), a Seychelles-based nonprofit that aims to strengthen transparency and collaboration in global marine fisheries management. FiTI is a global multi-stakeholder partnership that monitors the extent to which various governments publish fisheries information online. The organization receives… Read More
Published on
August 14, 2024

Ocean One Holdings, a major Hong Kong seafood importer and distributor, has blamed disappointing financial results on a growing trend of the city losing catering and retail spending to lower-cost cities across the border in mainland China.

Ocean One Holdings recorded revenue of approximately HKD 458.7 million (USD 58.8 million, EUR 53.3 million) for the year ended 31 March 2024, down 1.8 percent year over year. The group, which imports seafood

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Published on
August 13, 2024

Seafood suppliers are set to benefit from shifts in Chinese dietary trends toward more healthy proteins, as well as changes to the country’s foodservice sector, according to a new report from Utrecht, Netherlands-based Rabobank on China’s meat protein market.

Titled “New Consumption Trends in China Offer Opportunities for Animal Proteins,” the report outlines why seafood traders, who have been gloomy recently about soft

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Published on
August 13, 2024

A Chinese seafood-processing company is branching out into the bar business in a bid to boost its loss-making principal business.

Gaodi Holdings, based in Xiamen in southern China, told investors it would invest over CNY 5 million (USD 700,000, EUR 650,000) on equipment to set up a series of bars.

“Since 2020, the Group has accumulated losses of more than CNY 270 million [USD 37.8 million, EUR 35.1 million], mainly on its packaging and

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Published on
August 9, 2024

Seafood processors in China are shutting down processing capacity this summer due to slack demand from key buyers, according to a leading seafood trader.

“All processors are reducing production capacity by at least 30 percent,” said David Jiang, managing director at Unibond Seafood International Ltd., which sources seafood in China for European customers.

Jiang said processors in China are “facing difficulties due to weak

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Published on
August 7, 2024

A trade group representing China’s distant-water fishing industry has partnered with an organization representing members of the Sichuan culinary industry in a bid to drive consumption of domestically caught seafood, which could reduce dependence on international markets that have sanctioned Chinese operations.

During the 2024 Chengdu Zhoushan Oceangoing Aquatic Products and Food Festival, the Zhejiang Distant-Water Fishery Association and

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Published on
August 5, 2024

A Chinese quick-service fish restaurant chain is expanding in the U.S. as weaker consumer sentiment drags on its performance in the Chinese catering sector. 

The Yu Ni Zai Yi Qi chain, which trades as Together With Fish, has opened a new Fish With You eatery in the Convoy district of San Diego, California, U.S.A. The company also has a restaurant in a Chinese neighborhood of Flushing in the New York City borough of Queens.

Fish With You

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