Decades ago, Japanese seafood companies realized the fastest and least costly way to access raw material from overseas was to skip the back-and-forth negotiation process with suppliers and build or buy shore-based companies to deal directly with the harvesters.

That led to a buying spree that continues today – though for the most part at a slower rate than it once did. Japanese companies have been responsible for the healthy consolidation of a lot of fragmented sectors around the globe, to the benefit of the industry, I would argue.

Well,