Maruha Nichiro Corporation’s net profit increased 10.1 percent in the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2019 (1 April, 2018 to 31 December, 2018). However, that gain was due to extraordinary income, such as insurance income. Subsidiary Peter Pan Seafoods’ Port Moller, Alaska processing plant burned in August 2017.
Net sales of the Tokyo-based company actually decreased by 1 percent. Operating income declined 8.8 percent. In the fisheries & aquaculture segment, sales prices of bluefin and skipjack tuna fell, as bluefin operations were disrupted by typhoons, and catches of skipjack were poor.
In their trading segment, cost increases could not be passed entirely on to consumers, resulting in lower margins.
In the overseas business segment, net sales increased due to brisk sales of pet food in Thailand and the addition of a new fishing vessel in New Zealand. But operating income decreased because of poor fishing in Australia and New Zealand, as well as fierce competition for exports of shrimp from Thailand.
In North America, sales and operating income both increased despite a poor catch of pink salmon, due to efficient pollock production and brisk sales of pollock, shrimp and octopus in Europe.
In the processing segment, net sales and operating income increased. In the foods and fine chemicals business, sales of freeze-dried products and of DHA and EPA supplements helped raise the operating income. In the frozen food business, sales fell due to a decline in lunchbox item sales, despite a rise in home meal replacement and frozen vegetable sales. In the consumer processed foods business, dessert sales and sales of canned fish such as mackerel and sardines and saury also grew.
TV shows in Japan have been touting the health benefits of canned fish over grilled, the main benefit being that the nutrition is kept in the juices. Japanese can eat canned mackerel directly on rice, so as not to lose this nutrition. However, mackerel prices are soaring as a result of the demand, so the company announced that it will raise the prices of all of its canned mackerel products, by an average of some 7 percent, starting on 1 March. It will be Maruha Nichiro's first price hikes for such products since September of last year.
The price of the company's mainstay 200-gram can of boiled mackerel will be raised from 297 yen to 319 yen. Sales of canned mackerel jumped 50 percent in 2018 from the previous year.
The logistics segment was unchanged.
