Tokyo, Japan-based convenience store chain FamilyMart has launched two products that feature Alaskan seafood and bear the Alaska Seafood Marketing Association (ASMI) logo on their packaging.
The new products are Salt-Grilled Natural Sockeye Salmon, sold for JPY 398 (USD 2.47, EUR 2.28), and a 7.5-gram seafood stick made with Alaska pollock stuffed with mentaiko, or spicy pollock roe, and mayonnaise sold for JPY 178 (USD 1.10, EUR 1.02). The company said that the products have been sold under the house brand “Famimaru KITCHEN” at its more than 16,000 stores across Japan from 18 June onward.
The additions to FamilyMart’s shelves join three existing products using wild-caught seafood from Alaska: a plain seafood stick; crab-flavored kamaboko, or fishcake; and braised redfish.
FamilyMart’s inclusion of Alaskan seafood is just one part of a years-long push made by the Alaskan seafood industry to establish a larger footprint in Japan. To that end, two Japanese companies received awards related to their use and promotion of surimi from Alaska.
Chanda Burke, director of the Agricultural Trade Office (ATO) of the U.S. Embassy, and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel recently inducted Hiroshima-based seafood company Osaki Suisan into the U.S.-Japan Agricultural Trade Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.
The award was established in 2011 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service and the U.S. Embassy in Japan to honor companies and organizations that have contributed to the development of markets for U.S. agricultural products in Japan.
Osaki Suisan was the first seafood company to receive the honor.
“The fact that we have been able to steadily use high-quality ingredients from Alaska is due to Alaska's strict resource management over the years,” Osaki Suisan President Katsuichi Osaki said. “We hope that Alaska will continue to supply us with Alaska raw materials that have been well-managed, and we will continue to sell them as we have done in the past.”
Another fishcake maker, Sugiyo, recently received the National Kamaboko Seafood Award for its Fluffy Date Roll, which is a soft, fine-textured, and sweet egg and surimi roll popular in New Year’s “osechi ryori” meals.
The event is sponsored by both the Japan Kamaboko Association and ASMI.
