Kyokuyo was founded in 1937 as a fishing company and has evolved into one of the world’s leading food processing companies with an emphasis on seafood. Kyokuyo established two food processing plants in Japan in 1960, and in the early 1970s established a cold storage facility and began tuna operations on a fleet of frozen-at-sea purse seine vessels.

Kyokuyo America was established an office in Seattle, Washington, in 1973. Kyokuyo America says it has built an 80-year-long global network of fishery products worldwide.

In the early 1980s, several more value-added plants were established primarily for breading and producing sauces for ready-to-eat items. The company also set up operations in Qingdao, China, and Saigon, Vietnam, for reprocessing.

In 2005, a joint venture with K&U Enterprises was created to concentrate on frozen sushi and sushi toppings.

In March of 2020, Kyokuyo set up a factory in Thailand under the name Kyokuyo Global to produce ready-to-cook seafood products, later expanding the product base to sushi production for the Japanese and other markets.

Two years later, the company established Kyokuyo Vina Foods in Vietnam to supply Southeast Asia.

After seeing the increased demand for "kanikama," the Japanese word for surimi in the United States, Kyokuyo America created Ocean’s Kitchen in 2023 to start manufacturing the product locally.

Ocean’s Kitchen, opened its first factory in Kent, Washington, in December 2024 and began production in February 2025. It has around 20 employees currently working at the new plant.

The company in 2024 also acquired Turkish seafood supplier Kocaman Balikcilik Ihracat through its Netherlands-based subsidiary Kyokuyo Europe, with the aim of strengthening production and sales in Europe.

A Japanese giant's shiny, new surimi plant targets a booming US customer base