The major Japanese seafood company Kyokuyo has launched its group's first production base in Vietnam, in Long An province in the south. This plant, which puts processed crab products and fish fillets at its core, is part of an effort to spread processing functions that had concentrated in China across Southeast Asia, and many of the products made there come back to Japan. In other words, 'where it was made' for the processed fish lining Japanese supermarkets and foodservice chains is quietly being rewritten. For Japanese buyers sourcing raw materials and processed goods, this becomes prime material for reading the change in the sourcing map.<\/p>\n
Through its Vietnamese local subsidiary Kyokuyo Vina Foods, Kyokuyo built a processing plant in the Duc Hoa 1 Industrial Park in Duc Hoa district, Long An province. It produces fish fillets, simmered fish, grilled fish and processed crab products, with investment of about JPY 2.1 billion. It expects employees on the scale of 700 as of 2025. This is the first time Kyokuyo has held its own production base in Vietnam, and many of the products are planned for export to Japan.<\/p>\n
The plant was completed on November 8, 2024, and it was announced that, after a December 2024 trial run, full operation was planned from February 2025. Output is assumed to be raised to about 5,000 tonnes in the first year, 2025, and about 7,500 tonnes the following year, 2026. The amount itself does not stand out as capital investment for a major seafood company, but as a statement of intent to 'hold one's own base that can be entrusted with processing for Japan outside China,' its significance is weighty.<\/p>\n
Behind this is the structure in which Japanese seafood processing has long relied on China. From the balance of labor cost and processing skill, Japanese seafood companies built a flow of sending raw material to China to process and returning products to Japan. What made the fragility of that one-legged supply network clear to everyone was China's suspension of imports of Japanese seafood, triggered by the August 2023 release of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. If China's plants stop, the processed goods that should reach the Japanese table stop too. This experience is pushing the move to diversify processing locations.<\/p>\n
That said, China's import suspension was partially lifted at the end of June 2025, and imports of seafood -- excluding from 10 prefectures such as Fukushima and Tokyo -- resumed conditionally. Even so, the reason the majors do not slacken their overseas-base building is that they want to avoid the very risk of depending on a single country for the supply network. The reason for choosing Vietnam is also clear: it is easy to secure processing labor, and the logistics network for Japan is also taking shape. Kyokuyo also launched a plant in Thailand in 2022 handling grilled fish, simmered fish, sushi toppings and frozen sushi, and this Long An plant is on the extension of the current of broadening processing receptacles in Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n
From a single pole in China to multiple bases including Thailand and Vietnam. Diversifying processing locations has now become behavior common to Japan's major seafood companies. Kyokuyo is one corner of the three seafood majors alongside Maruha Nichiro and Nissui, and the significance of that number-three newly establishing a base for Japan-facing processing in Vietnam is not small. It shows that not only the top company but the majors as a whole are moving to review processing locations.<\/p>\n