Tokyo, Japan-based Maruha Nichiro Corporation announced on 9 January it will buy bluefin tuna farming company Nanki Kushimoto Fisheries, a subsidiary of Toyo Reizo Co., Ltd.
Toyo Reizo is a Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Group company. It specializes in cold storage and logistics, but also produces and distributes frozen products, including fish. It is a major tuna distributor, and owns several fishing-related vessels, including three tuna processing vessels with the world's highest refrigerated processing capacity, as well as a fleet of dedicated tuna carriers around the world. The company's tuna products have been sold under different brands: its wild-caught tuna is labeled “Tuna Queen,” while farmed tuna – produced by the subsidiary being sold to Maruha Nichiro – is marketed under the name “Tuna Princess.”
Nanki Kushimoto Fisheries was formerly a sea bream farming unit of Japanese wine company Mercian Corporation, based in Tokyo, but when the fish farming operation went into the red in 2010, it was sold to Toyo Reizo, which focused on bluefin farming. It has its headquarters in Wakayama Prefecture, near Kindai University, which pioneered the process of bluefin tuna farming, and it operates its bluefin farm in Goto City, Nagasaki.
The firm's farmed tuna has been artificially cultured from hatching to adult fish in collaboration with Kindai University and the Nagasaki Prefectural Fisheries Experimental Station. This domestication of tuna avoids depletion of wild stocks of juvenile tuna.
Maruha Nichiro, which was the first private company to master closed-cycle bluefin breeding, said it has experienced strong domestic demand for bluefin tuna, but has found it difficult to expand the scale of its bluefin farming operations in Japan, as the opening of new aquaculture sites is strictly regulated, with local fishery cooperatives owning priority rights to aquaculture sites. With the business transfer, Maruha Nichiro Group's farmed bluefin domestic tuna production will be raised to about one-third of Japan’s total production. The company’s website reports its 2018 farmed bluefin tuna production (prior to the purchase) at 3,800 metric tons, accounting for a 21 percent domestic market share.
Maruha Nichiro already operates an aquaculture farm, Kushimoto Marine Farm, adjacent to Nanki Kushimoto Fisheries, so it is very familiar with the features and environment of the location and the company said it expects management synergies. The purchased company will be absorbed by Kushimoto Marine Farm.
Before the purchase, Maruha Nichiro had eight bluefin fish farms, along with four each for amberjack and yellowtail, and one for sea cucumber.
