Mitsubishi sees demand for farmed pangasius blocks surge as buyers turn away from Russian whitefish

The trading arm of UK-based Princes Group, a subsidiary of Japanese seafood giant Mitsubishi, is seeing a notable surge in demand for Vietnamese pangasius, or basa, from European buyers amid the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Neil Bohannon, group director for seafood at Princes, said European customers purchasing large volumes of Russian-caught pollock processed in China have been on the hunt for alternatives as they looked for ways to diversify.

“And one of the areas where we've seen a change is a lot of customers are now looking to diversify away from that Russian-caught, processed in China, pollock to -- probably the main alternative -- which is farmed pangasius in Vietnam," Bohannon told IntraFish.