The snow crab, or opilio crab, supply to Japan will likely dive to a 10-year low this year, due to higher purchasing cost by the depreciation of the yen and stronger demand in the competing markets, especially the United States.
Japan typically buys opilio from four major suppliers: Alaska, Newfoundland, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Russia’s Far East, with a new fishery in the Barents Sea. The cluster products from Alaska and Newfoundland primary head overseas, including to China, for meat picking.
The supply from Alaska to Japan is unchanged at 5,000 metric tons on a section product basis while the shipments from Newfoundland declined 10-20 percent from 2014 to around 9,000 metric tons.
