Japanese market says Norwegian mackerel too expensive

Holtermann represents the Japanese trading firm Marubeni, a major customer for Norwegian mackerel sellers. Marubeni owns Japan’s biggest supermarket chain, Dai-ei, and is part-owner in the Metro chain in Japan.

Holtermann’s comments, which he made at the "Pelagic Days" event held in Bergen, Norway this week, was just one of several shocking revelations for the Norwegian pelagic industry.

Norwegian Seafood Export Council’s (NSEC) delegate in Japan, Hans Petter Naes, was not too far off the mark when he characterized the mackerel market in Japan -- a market that last year had absorbed 70 percent of the Norwegian mackerel export -- as critical.

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