Hokkaido scallops seen at 298,000 tonnes: how to source in a year with few large ones

On September 22, 2026, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) reported that output in Hokkaido, Japan's largest scallop-producing region, is projected to stay at 298,200 tonnes this season. That is 15% below the previous year, and the first drop below 300,000 tonnes in nine years. What is being landed in the Sea of Okhotsk, now in its main fishing season, is small sizes centered on '5S,' and the supply of large scallops is as thin as the previous year. This does not end as a story only about the production region, because tracing the Ministry of Finance's trade statistics shows that 45% of the volume of scallops leaving Japan is already bound for Vietnam.

Who issued the 298,200-tonne projection, and when

The announcement was in Tokyo on August 27; it circulated in Vietnamese on September 22

The figure comes from the Hokkaido Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations (Hokkaido Gyoren), a projection presented at a meeting on autumn trading held in Tokyo on August 27. The source article is written in Vietnamese and does not give the formal name of the Japanese meeting. What circulated on September 22 is not a new survey result but a projection shared within the Japanese industry about four weeks earlier that crossed into the Vietnamese-speaking sphere. Vietnamese processors have likely been seeing the same figure since late August. If a Japanese buyer brings it to negotiations as fresh information, the counterpart has already priced it in.

Back-calculating from the 15% decline puts the previous year at around 350,000 tonnes, but this is the author's division, not a figure the federation presented as the prior-year result. It is safer to limit what you bring to negotiations to the two figures of 298,200 tonnes and the 15% decline.

What is landed in the Okhotsk, now in its main season, is mostly 5S

What the source article states is that the Sea of Okhotsk has entered its main fishing season and that the current catch leans toward small grades, 5S in particular. It does not give a count-per-unit range for how many 5S pieces at what price. The easy misstep here is to reread the description of a lean toward small sizes as 'there are no large scallops at all.' The source article only says that the supply of large scallops is limited as in the previous year; it does not say they have vanished. The total volume falls 15%, and within that the proportion of large scallops declines. What affects buyers is the size composition more than the total volume.

Note the difference in aggregation scope as well. An English-language seafood trade outlet, in a headline dated August 10, reports that the Sea of Okhotsk catch is 22% below the previous year. The body is paywalled, and which period the 22% covers could not be confirmed. A mid-season figure for the Okhotsk alone and the 15% decline, which is the full-season outlook for all of Hokkaido, are not the same yardstick.

45% of Japan's scallops by volume go to Vietnam

In 2025, Vietnam ranked first at JPY 19.8 billion and 23,516 tonnes

In the 2025 results compiled by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries based on the Ministry of Finance's trade statistics, Japan's exports of scallops (fresh, chilled and frozen, excluding prepared products) were JPY 90.59 billion and 51,559 tonnes. The value rose 30.4% from the previous year. The top country was Vietnam at JPY 19.81 billion and 23,516 tonnes, up 86.4% in value year on year. Second was the United States and third was Taiwan.

A gap between a 21.9% value share and a 45.6% volume share

Vietnam's value share is 21.9%, but its volume share is 45.6%. This gap shows what Japan's scallops are used for in Vietnam. The average unit prices in the table below are the author's calculation dividing disclosed value by volume, not a price set in any market. Because the export value in the trade statistics is on an FOB basis, in stage terms it corresponds to the average export FOB unit price. It is a different yardstick from the beach price at the production site or the domestic wholesale price, and lining it up against domestic retail prices to produce a multiple has no meaning.

The average unit prices for Vietnam and South Korea are around half the world total, while those for the United States and Taiwan are more than three times it. Even within the same statistical item, the form loaded differs by destination country. To higher-unit-price destinations flow products that fetch a selling price; to lower ones flow raw materials that are worked on locally.

Why did frozen scallop adductors (tamarei) bound for Vietnam grow in a year when large scallops declined

Among the growth factors cited by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is reduced output due to high water temperatures

In the January-June 2026 export results, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries describes the factors behind a JPY 3.2 billion increase in scallop export value as follows: in addition to rising demand bound for Vietnam for frozen adductors (frozen scallop adductor muscle) used in water-added processing, there was reduced output of Sea of Okhotsk product due to high water temperatures in the summer of 2025 and a unit-price rise from increased demand from various countries. In other words, the reduced output worked not to push export value down but to push unit prices up. By country and region, too, Vietnam ranked sixth for January-June at JPY 53.3 billion, up 35.4% year on year, and scallops led the main items in its JPY 13.9 billion increase.

This is what buyers should take away. Even if large scallops decline, small frozen adductors become raw material for processing that adds water to increase volume. Being small does not fully become a defect for that use. Domestic products premised on large scallops and overseas processing premised on small ones compete over the same landings at the same beach.

The cumulative figure was +6.5%, yet the single month of July turned to an 8.3% decline

The momentum changed in July, however. The January-July cumulative was JPY 44.03 billion, up 6.5% year on year, but the single month of July was JPY 5.84 billion, 8.3% below the same month a year earlier. Because the January-June cumulative was up 9.1%, the single-month slowdown dropped the cumulative growth by 2.6 points. The lineup of growth items bound for Vietnam in January-July was also, in order, mackerel, instant coffee and scallops, with scallops, which led in January-June, falling to third.

The processed-products side is also worth watching. Exports of processed scallop products were JPY 3.96 billion in January-July, down 20.8%, and JPY 310 million in the single month of July, down 35.6%, with double-digit minuses continuing. For full-year 2025 as well they were JPY 11.83 billion, down 33.2%, with the top destinations leaning toward final consumption markets: Hong Kong 62.4% and Taiwan 18.6%. The pattern of raw materials growing while processed products shrink overlaps with the trend of finishing steps moving offshore.

Three points for buyers with products premised on large scallops to check during this season

Whether size labeling can be removed from the specification sheet

Products that use 'large grain' or 'extra large' as a selling point in prepared foods or gifts collide head-on with this season's landing composition. What can be adjusted first is not the selling point but the specification sheet. Is the size fixed by a count range, by a gram floor per piece, or accepted by total weight alone? A specification that can be accepted by total weight can meet the same quantity by putting in more small pieces. A specification that fixes both the count and the gram floor is the hardest to get through this season.

Whether yields for water-added and non-water-added products can be kept separately

If frozen adductors for water-added processing are growing, water-added products circulating in the market also increase. How much the post-thaw weight deviates from the weight at purchase changes with whether water was added. If this is lumped into a single yield coefficient, a switch in raw material lags by one lot before it shows in the cost. If you set whether water was added as a separate item in the purchasing ledger and record thaw yields separately, the basis for the next pricing changes.

Whether there is room to substitute another shellfish for shucked meat

It is also worth calculating whether the slot filled by shucked scallop meat can be partly replaced by other shellfish. If you look to the Vietnamese side, for example, Vietnam's whelk farming is on the scale of 6,200 tonnes a year, so it is not a partner that can load volume all at once. Rather than a supply source to fill a hole on the scale of tens of thousands of tonnes, it is a partner for creating a separate shelf as a small-lot standardized product.

How Japan's shelves move as frozen adductors via Vietnam increase

Household spending is not keeping up with retail price increases

Even if the raw-material unit price rises, it cannot necessarily be passed straight into the selling price. Within Japan, while retail prices for seafood are up 9% year on year, households' real spending on seafood is falling, a situation that continues. A phase in which price increases are hard to pass at retail overlaps with a rise in export FOB unit prices. Trying to secure large scallops for the domestic market means having to compete with export unit prices. This season's procurement will need to be designed by separating the negotiation to pass price from the negotiation to secure volume.

The flow of raw materials is thicker than that of finished products

The back-and-forth of seafood between Japan and Vietnam is thicker on the raw-material side than on finished products. Even though Japan's exports of surimi products to Vietnam grew 2.2-fold, the absolute volume is 21 tonnes, staying at that scale, while in the same period Japan bought 1,844 tonnes of surimi from Vietnam. With scallops the structure is the same: what moves is not the final product but the raw material. In a year when Japan's producing regions cut output, the scramble for raw materials overlaps with Vietnam's processing demand. The counterparts domestic buyers should watch are not only domestic peers.

If you move just one thing this season, it is to line up the specification sheets of the scallop products you handle and make a list of whether the fixed size condition is written as count, per-piece weight or total weight. Then separate out the products that still hold up if the count is removed. The 298,200 tonnes is a projection shared in late August, and the composition at the beach is already shifting.

Materials and reports referenced

• VASEP, 'Hokkaido scallop production may hit its lowest level in nine years' (September 22, 2026, in Vietnamese)
• Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 'January-June 2026 export results for agricultural, forestry, fishery and food products'
• Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 'Export results for agricultural, forestry, fishery and food products' (July 2026 / 2025 by item)
• Undercurrent News (August 10, 2026, headline only / body paywalled)