Scallop exporters in Japan are continuing to grapple with China’s ban on imports of Japanese seafood, with some pivoting to Southeast Asia as a new destination for raw products.
China’s complete ban on Japanese seafood was initiated in August 2023 in response to the release of contaminated cooling water by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The ban has had a heavy impact on a number of Japanese seafood exporters, with Hokkaido scallop producers in particular seeing customers pull back on orders.
At Seafood Expo Global, taking place from 23 to 25 April in Barcelona, Spain, several Japanese scallop exporters the ban continues to take a bit out of their business.
Tsujino & Co. Manager Hiroki Komiyama said his company traditionally exported 90 percent of its frozen whole-shell scallops to China, mainly for the purpose of reprocessing for export to other markets. With the ban, that market has been shuttered, forcing his company to find new processors.
“The Japanese producers, especially in Hokkaido, they have already started to do reprocessing in Vietnam,” he told SeafoodSource.
Komiyama said Tsujino & Co. doesn’t expect the ban to be lifted any time soon.
“We see that the issue is political,” he said. “Based on the past record of Australian beef, it took three years. We suppose [this] will [also] take at least three years.”
Yokorei Co. Deputy General Manager Shunsuke Otsuki said his company used to send roughly 3,000 metric tons of whole-shell scallops annually to China for processing and reexport to the U.S. But Otsuki said he's worried China won’t be a viable market for Japanese scallops for years as potential conflicts between the U.S. and China could cause further problems.
“Because of the conflict between China and the U.S. over the economy and if [Donald] Trump is the new president, then we are worried very much of the duty from China increasing,” Otsuki told SeafoodSource.
Otsuki said his company has thus far coped with the ban better than most by finding a new processing option in Southeast Asia.
“Luckily, one of our biggest customers found processing in other countries like Vietnam and Thailand,” he said. “We started supplying to them again in 2023.”
He said other Japanese scallop firms haven’t been so lucky, with many still searching for processing companies in Southeast Asia. For those that remain, finding a processor with enough experience to do the job right is a challenge, Komiyama said. In China, a lot of processors use phosphates to increase the size of scallops. That technique isn’t as effective in Vietnam or Thailand and takes longer.
“The pace cannot be as fast as they can expect from China,” he said.
Komiyama said Tsujino has worked to claw back its losses from TEPCO, which in October 2023 started accepting applications for compensation from fishermen who and businesses that suffered damages from the contaminated water release. But Komiyama said he hasn't been successful yet.
“We were expecting that TEPCO would do something, but it [hasn't happened] as quickly as we expected,” he said. “We are one of those who have applied for compensation, but that compensation process is not that easy.”
Looking forward, Otsuki said his company is seeing some positive movement on prices thanks to better sales in the domestic market, largely thanks to the price of scallops dropping significantly after China’s ban.
“At the same time, the U.S. market was very bad, but now it is recovering,” he said.
