A farmed fish from Vietnam is attracting attention as an alternative ingredient for surimi fish paste, which is used to make products such as chikuwa, satsuma-age and kamaboko fish cakes.
Surimi Supply Pressures and Surging Import Costs
Surimi prices have soared amid tight supplies, placing processed fish product-makers under intense pressure ahead of the peak winter demand season. Japan consumes more than 200,000 tons of surimi annually. While the paste is made primarily from Alaska pollock, sluggish catches in Hokkaido and other domestic regions have increased the country’s reliance on imports from the United States and elsewhere.
According to an industry group representing processed fish product-makers, Alaska pollock caught in the Bering Sea—a major fishing ground—have grown smaller in recent years. This reduced surimi production has driven prices up, doubling costs over the past three to four years.
Additional supply constraints stem from Southeast Asia, where surimi is also manufactured from golden threadfin bream, croaker, and daggertooth pike conger. Many regional fishers remain unable to go out and catch these varieties due to soaring fuel costs reflecting ongoing turmoil in the Middle East.
Pangasius Catfish as a Commercial Alternative
Faced with a serious shortage of fish for surimi, industry players are eyeing pangasius catfish farmed in Vietnam as a viable alternative ingredient. The fish features light-flavored white flesh and is already exported to Europe, the United States, and other global markets where it is commonly eaten fried.
A Japanese trading house dealing in food ingredients is actively working with a Vietnamese seafood company to transform pangasius into a stable surimi ingredient. “More than 1.6 million tons of pangasius are produced annually in Vietnam, making it possible to mass-produce the fish for use as an alternative ingredient,” a trading house official noted.
The company expressed confidence in the quality of the paste produced from pangasius, projecting that several thousand tons could be supplied annually to Japan in the future. These volumes could soon establish pangasius as a commercially viable alternative to traditional Alaska pollock.
Industry Adjustments to Rising Costs
Processed fish product-makers are responding to declining surimi supplies and rising production costs by reducing the physical size of their products, among other mitigation measures. While parallel efforts are underway to produce surimi from alternative fish species that currently experience low market demand, those initiatives have yet to generate sufficient supplies to stabilize the broader market.
