A leading Chinese tuna processor sees scope for more sales in Europe for its products as prices begin to improve.
Pingtai Rong Ocean Fishery Co. is seeking customers in Europe for its tuna cuts, Eric Wang, assistant manager of the company’s business development department, told SeafoodSource during the 2025 Seafood Expo Global – which ran from 6 to 8 May in Barcelona, Spain.
“The prices we’ve been getting for tuna have been low but are now improving,” Wang said.
Wang said the company, based in the eastern Chinese port city of Zhoushan, is keen to secure a client base in Europe. To date, it has supplied Thai canners with yellowfin loins for E.U. buyers but is open to supply relationships with European retailer and wholesalers and has worked to secure the necessary certifications for the market.
“We have the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification; this is very important for Western buyers,” Wang explained.
Pingtai Rong has also worked to grow domestic sales of its tuna in China by opening its own chain of Japanese restaurants and a series of stores in key regional cities, like wealthy east coast Hangzhou and the city of Dazhou in the populous Sichuan province. The company localizes its products to regional culinary tastes, offering products like black pepper tuna neck, sour soup tuna, spicy tuna, and braised tuna tail.
Pingtai Rong launched some of the first domestic deep-freeze tuna reefers in China and continues to use the vessels to supply both the domestic and E.U. markets. The Zheijiang Daily newspaper reported recently that the Pingtai Rongleng 6 reefer, operated by Pingtai Rong Ocean Fishery, docked with 4,000 metric tons (MT) of tuna caught by the Pingtai Rong fleet the South Pacific.
Pingtai Rong has also established an in-house R&D center to develop tuna products for health functions, including a range of peptides and collagens into the Chinese market targeting local demand for functional health solutions as the nation's population ages.
Exports of Chinese tuna loins to the E.U. have surged in recent years as the bloc seeks to secure supply by dropping tariffs on imports. The move has, however, angered some European tuna companies.
