Land-based salmon farming company Proximar Seafood AS has reached an agreement with Marubeni Corporation whereby Marubeni will be the exclusive distributor in Japan for all the Atlantic salmon produced by the closed recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) that Proximar is currently constructing in the country.
The agreement covers sales of all volumes produced by Proximar for the Japanese market and has an initial term of 10 years.
Proximar CEO Joachim Nielsen said that teaming up with Marubeni was a key part of its partnership strategy and would bring it a step closer to supplying fresh salmon to the Japanese market.
“We now have a sales and distribution partner in Japan with superior market insight and access, reducing risk and increasing pricing power.”
Nielsen added that the agreement with Marubeni provides Proximar with significant resources in terms of sales and marketing.
General Manager of Marubeni’s Fresh Food Department, Kazunari Nakamura, highlighted that Japan’s self-sufficiency rate for fisheries products is only 57%, and securing a stable supply of these products is now a social issue due to the rising consumption of these products overseas and increasing geopolitical risks, like the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In this environment, we feel that it is of great social significance to participate in a project to produce Atlantic salmon, which is much preferred by Japanese consumers, here in Japan,” Nakamura said.
Proximar’s first facility in Oyama is expected to be completed in the third-quarter of 2023. The target capacity is an annual head-on-gutted (HOG) volume of 5,300 tonnes and first harvest is expected in the first-half of 2024.
