A free-trade agreement between China and Iceland has proven a boon for the latter by making its products more competitive in the Chinese market.
Hoskuldur Guttormsson, the Tokyo, Japan-based sales and marketing manager at Icelandic Asia, the formerly state-owned conglomerate now owned by Icelandic seafood firm Brim, told SeafoodSource at the 2022 Seafood Expo Global that whole redfish from Iceland is proving a strong seller in China, in part due to the FTA’s impact on pricing.
Much of the mackerel and redfish Brim ships to processors in Qingdao and other cities in Shandong province is eventually sold on to buyers in Japan. But an increasing share is staying in China as the domestic appetite for such product grows, Guttormsson said.
The flexibility this has given the company has proven useful, Guttormsson said, with strict lockdowns in both countries limiting each country’s foodservice business at different times. Additionally, the countries have complementary demand for specialty products – heads from fish shipped to Japan are a valuable commodity in China, where fish head soup is a popular restaurant offering.
However, logistics into China have been very difficult in recent months, with containers being switched between different ports as pandemic-related lockdowns have limited cold-storage capacity. And the pandemic has created havoc at processing factories in China, with some operating at half normal staffing levels, and Japan’s immigration controls prohibiting foreign laborers from entering the country, liming production capacity, Guttormsson said.
Icelandic Asia is still doing good business in both countries, Guttormsson stressed.
“Right now, it’s okay for mackerel, as the season has closed and we have product there [in China],” Guttormsson said.
Guttormsson said Brim is trying to keep up with changing trends in Japan as the population continues to age.
“But this has been good for us as it’s driven demand for quality products, and we compete on the higher end,” he said.
Photo courtesy of Icelandic Asia
