Japan's seafood processors are beginning to shift their business focus from catching fish from the sea to inland fish farming as new technologies and legal revisions make this kind of aquaculture more appealing. Companies such as Maruha Nichiro and Nippon Suisan Kaisha, or Nissui, soon expect to begin commercial shipments of inland farmed fish, including salmon, and a general trading company is following suit.
Maruha Nichiro President Shigeru Ito believes aquaculture will "shift from sea-based to land-based in the future.
Japan's Maruha Nichiro plans to start shipping "sakuramasu," a type of salmon, raised at its inland fish farm in Yamagata Prefecture, starting in the spring.
Trading house Mitsui & Co., meanwhile, plans to begin shipping salmon farmed in Kisarazu, southeast of Tokyo. FRD Japan, a Mitsui subsidiary specializing in inland fish-farming, is in charge of the operation. The startup, based in Saitama, near Tokyo, has developed a closed aquaculture system that recirculates artificial seawater using a biological filtration system.
Nissui plans to begin commercial sales of its cultured whiteleg shrimp, which it recently began shipping on a trial basis. Full-scale operations are to begin in the fiscal year starting in April. It also plans to begin inland farming of mackerel the following year, aiming to become the first company in Japan to sell farmed mackerel commercially. The key goal of the project is to cut costs by teaming up with a business in another industry that has a water treatment technology.
Full story at Nikkei Asian Review