The Japanese market, the largest for octopus, prefers smaller sizes, but the Mauritanian catch this year has been the predominately larger specimens popular in Spain.
Cephalopods caught by the Mauritanian national fleet are sold through the quasi-governmental corporation Société Mauritanienne de Commercialisation du Poisson (SMCP), which has set a price of USD 11,900 per metric ton for 800- to 1,200-gram octopus, up 16 percent from this time last year. Mauritania is the world’s top supplier.
Japanese traders may abandon planned purchases, as recent yen weakening erodes their buying power. They can’t easily pass on price hikes because “tako” is a price-sensitive everyday item sold in vinegared salads in supermarkets and in the popular Osaka-area specialty “tako-yaki” (octopus pieces fried in balls of batter). Higher-priced sushi is only a small part of overall octopus use in the country.
In Italy and Spain, the second- and third-largest importers, Octopus vulgaris is used primarily in restaurants, giving them more room to absorb price hikes. Italy has a wide range of suppliers, with Spain prominent. Spain itself relies heavily on nearby Morocco, but also operates vessels in Mauritanian waters under an EU-Mauritanian agreement that provides about one-third of that county’s government revenue. Much of that haul is processed in Senegal and the Canary Islands. At the Spanish wholesale market of Mercamadrid, frozen Moroccan octopus has been stable at an average of EUR 751 per kilogram.
China, which has replaced Morocco as Japan’s No. 2 supplier, can expect increased demand from the Mauritanian impasse. The rocky Zhoushan Islands south of Shanghai are a major Chinese production area. China exports mainly to South Korea.
Vietnam is the second-largest exporter to South Korea with about 40 percent of the market and has seen rapid expansion of exports to Japan. Domestic materials are insufficient to fill processing needs and the industry is lobbying for a break on the 18 percent duty on imported materials.
Japan’s octopus imports have declined steadily over the past few years. In 2010, imports declined 20 percent, and the trend is continuing. This reflects a return to normal levels after unusually abundant and cheap supplies in 2008 and 2009, when Mauritania flooded the market in order to maintain steady revenue in the face of declining prices following the subprime housing loan financial crisis. In Japan, demand usually climbs in anticipation of demand for New Year celebratory meals and then declines.
Japanese imports in December 2011 totaled 3,241,405 metric tons at an average CIF (cost, insurance and freight) price of JPY 2.62 million per metric tons (JPY 808 per kilogram). This year, tight supplies and a weakening yen have kept prices high into 2012. Japan imports about half of what it consumes. As prices have risen, volumes have declined, but import values have been stable or rising due to higher prices.
