Nissui Co. has introduced a plan to spend JPY 17 billion (USD 113 million, EUR 105 million) to expand its seafood-processing capabilities in the United States and European Union.
The Tokyo, Japan-based seafood conglomerate, which operates over 20 seafood industry subsidiaries, including Gorton's, UniSea, King and Prince, F.W. Bryce, Nordic Seafood, Sealord, Mrs. Fridays, Nigico, TNFC, YTC, Delmar, TaiMei, Emdepes, and Five Star, announced the move in its Q3 2023 financial results.
Under the company’s "Good Foods 2030” strategy announced in 2022, which outlined a plan for accelerating its global expansion and its overseas food business, Nissui singled out a focus on becoming the world’s top fried whitefish and shrimp product-maker.
“To achieve this goal, we have been considering increasing production capacity in both areas, as we lacked it,” Nissui President and CEO Shingo Hamada in a 14 February release.
Specifically, Nissui was looking to add capacity at Gloucester, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Gorton’s, which manufactures and sells frozen seafood products in North America, and Plumerine, France-based Keranna Productions, which produces frozen and chilled fried whitefish and alternative protein products.
“Gorton's has the top market share in the home-prepared frozen seafood category in the United States, and in addition to its mainstay line of fried white fish products using Alaska pollock, it is also working to expand products using shrimp,” Hamada said. “However, the current production capacity centered on the head office factory has reached its limit.”
After considering and rejecting the possibility of making one or more acquisitions to address the issue, Nissui has instead decided to invest in the establishment of a new Gorton’s production base in the U.S. state of Indiana.
“Aiming to start operations in the second half of 2025, in addition to increasing production capacity, we will improve logistics efficiency for raw material procurement and product sales, increase production of value-added products, and optimize production items,” Hamada said.
Nissui is also investing in an expansion of …
Photo courtesy of Nissui
