Tokyo, Japan-basedbased Marubeni Corporation and Norway-based Proximar Seafood AS have announced an agreement making Marubeni the exclusive distributor in Japan of Atlantic salmon produced by the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) Proximar is building in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.
The initial term of the agreement is 10 years, and both parties will be involved in marketing the product, aiming to build a strong premium sustainable seafood brand. The agreement follows through on a memorandum of understanding signed by the companies in May 2021 and extended in November.
“Teaming up with Marubeni is a key part of our partnership strategy and brings us one step closer to supplying fresh salmon to the Japanese market,” Proximar CEO Joachim Nielsen said. “We now have a sales and distribution partner in Japan with superior market insight and access, reducing risk and increasing pricing power. The agreement with Marubeni provides Proximar significant resources in terms of sales and marketing, and we share the same views in terms of our products’ attractiveness.”
The land-based aquaculture sector is growing in Japan, partly as a work-around to local fishery cooperatives, which have priority rights to aquaculture sites. However, Japan's budding RAS sector faces challenges including higher capital outlays and operating costs. Most Japanese RAS operations have based their profit projections on an assumption of premium prices, stressing the benefits of fresher product and elimination of antibiotics, while overcoming some problems of sea-based farms such as sea lice and red tides. With current supply-chain problems and restrictions on Russian airspace interfering with delivery of fresh salmon from Norway, the case for local production has become stronger, Marubeni Fresh Food Department General Manager Kazunari Nakamura said.
“Japan's self-sufficiency rate for fisheries products is only 57 percent, and securing a stable supply of these products is now a social issue due to the rising consumption of these products overseas and increasing geopolitical risks, like [the COVID-19] pandemic,” Nakamura said. “In this environment, we feel that it is of great social significance to participate in a project to produce Atlantic salmon, which is much preferred by Japanese consumers, here in Japan. Together with Proximar, we will continue to take on the challenge of ensuring a stable supply of Atlantic salmon for Japanese consumers.”
Marubeni already has market share in Japan for wild-caught and farmed salmon, and in April 2020, it invested in Danish Salmon in Hirthals, Denmark, one of the world's largest RAS Atlantic salmon producers.
Proximar has contracted with Daiwa House to build its own RAS farm near Mt. Fuji, and will utilize RAS technology from Israel-based AquaMaof. The facility is expected to be finalized in the third quarter of 2023.
Photo courtesy of Proximar
