Japanese seafood giant Nissui is trying to re-angle its perspective on China.

“We have a tendency to look at China just as a processor,” Hisanori Kanno, international sales and business development manager, at the firm told IntraFish at the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo in Qingdao.

“But this is our biggest challenge for our company right now… to change our viewpoint."

Nissui has several strategic alliances in China in terms of import, export, processing and distribution. Its subsidiary, Qingdao Nissui, is selling imported product to the Japanese restaurant sector in China, but the mainstream market -- supermarkets, online and the Chinese restaurant sector -- still eludes the Japanese behemoth.

And with the Japanese market “saturated," getting serious in the world’s biggest seafood market, right on its doorstep is important for Nissui.

This is what has prompted the company to exhibit at the China Fisheries & Seafood Expo the last three years -- to research the Chinese consumer market.

Qingdao Nissui has been operating for the last decade, but only in the last four years has it begun importing and selling, acting initially as a consultant company.

It largely imports raw material -- Alaska pollock, New Zealand hoki, Russian and Alaskan crab -- arranges for its reprocessing through one of Nissui’s partner processors and then exports it to Japan and the United States.

But it is not these products where Nissui sees potential for Chinese consumers.

According to Kanno, fresh high-end seafood and fish oil is where the company’s future lies.

High end fresh because as the Chinese get richer, they’re interest in “delicious” food increases and fish oil, because it ticks boxes for China’s growing obsession with health and well-being.

One of the world’s biggest suppliers of fish oil, Nissui already has a lucrative partnership with Nestle, supplying oil for the company’s Bebe baby formula.

And with China’s interest in all things healthy -- and all things baby -- Nissui is looking to develop its own fish oil fortified product for the children’s market.

"If you know anyone we can partner with, let us know," said Kanno. You heard it here first.

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