Disruptions to global trade that have arisen since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in early 2025 have forced importers and exporters around the globe to strategize and adapt.
As a firm that both buys and sells internationally, Taiwanese seafood firm Yen and Brothers has had to deftly navigate the quickly changing economic landscape, Yen Chief Operating Officer Chihting Yen told SeafoodSource at the 2025 Seafood Expo North America.
While the uncertainty has been tough to manage, Yen said that his company is in a unique position to take advantage.
“It’s interesting and scary at the same time, but there are opportunities. We have never seen anything like this before – a trade war that hits so many major countries at once,” Yen said.
Founded in 1968, Yen and Brothers began as a seafood wholesaler, selling fresh seafood to domestic customers exclusively. In 1980, the firm added frozen seafood to its product portfolio, importing seafood from around the world to sell to Taiwanese clients.
It has since grown to become the largest buyer of frozen seafood in Taiwan, and around 85 percent of Yen’s revenue still comes from selling domestically, according to Chihting. The company has processing factories, three logistics centers, and traceability infrastructure that utilizes technology from software company Oracle in order to provide next-day delivery of reliable seafood to restaurant chains across Taiwan.
Though the domestic market remains Yen’s top priority, in the late 2000s, problems with selling exclusively to the Taiwanese market became too big to ignore, according to Chihting.
He said among several issues, the domestic market was becoming oversaturated with seafood products and the country was starting to suffer from low birth rates – a trend that has only worsened. Both of these factors made exclusively focusing on Taiwan an unsuitable strategy for sustaining growth.
In 2010, Yen began exporting, a practice that now comprises the remaining 15 percent of its revenue.
“Our strategy is not to be trapped in the Taiwan market,” Chihting said. “We are betting on more exports and investing in another factory in Tainan as part of that bet to try to sell more.”
Yen sells value-added products, such as seafood and squid salad, capelin roe – or masago – seasoned scallops, farmed grouper and barramundi – both head-on gutted and in fillet form, and more. The firm mainly sells to clients in Southeast Asia and China, as well as foodservice importers and distributors in the U.S. and Europe who then sell to Japanese restaurants and Asian supermarkets like H-Mart and 99 Ranch.
The firm also sells non-seafood products like edamame paste, which has become a top seller, according to Chihting.
“Japanese restaurants and other foodservice customers use it to sell, apply it to sushi, or employ as a topping for other dishes,” he said.
Yen’s exporting arm has achieved steady growth, according to Chihting, but recent headwinds in the form of tariffs have placed the firm in a new position.
With trade tensions intensifying between the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, and China, Taiwanese products that may have been more expensive than Chinese goods or other competitive products are now on a level playing field, and importers are hurriedly searching for new products to fill the gap.
“Because of the tariff war, lots of things are shifting. For instance, China produces a lot of seaweed and exports it to the U.S., but due to the tariffs, we are seeing more interest in our products,” Chihting said.
Opportunities have arisen for Yen in North America and Europe, but remain limited in neighboring China, which has maintained a ban on most Taiwanese seafood since 2022.
Yen has tried several times to get its export license to China renewed, but each time, it has been denied, with no specific reason given, according to Chihting.
“We have no idea why they approve certain companies and don’t approve others,” he said. “We have received very little information as to what went wrong with the application. If we do get approved, that will help a lot.”
Chihting likened the situation to China’s ban on Japanese seafood, implemented in August 2023 after Japanese authorities approved the release of treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
“Not one single problem has been found with the treated wastewater, but the seafood is still banned. Chinese politics move slowly,” he said.
Though Yen is continuing to push to regain market share in China – as its consumer base is the largest in the world and is already familiar with the type of products Yen sells – it is not waiting around to make China a sole priority.
Besides new export opportunities, Chihting said that suppliers are also looking for import partners – a hole in the current supply chain that Yen is also happy to fill.
“Exporters from Canada and the U.S. who used to sell to China are under pressure to find new markets to sell. There could be opportunities there, too. We are speaking closely with our suppliers,” he said, adding that the next few months will be very telling in how the market plays out. “In a month or two, there will be a lot of changes, especially among suppliers, who are the first line in the supply chain.”
