Chinese salmon firm Oriental Ocean aiming to double production

The recent clampdown on salmon smuggling in China has given renewed confidence to a Shandong-based seafood firm, which is farming salmon locally. 

Shandong Oriental Ocean has organized a media tour to showcase its land based salmon production facilities in Yantai, a major seafood processing hub on China’s eastern coast. 

The firm is aiming for 1,000 metric tons (MT) per year of production – nearly double its current output – and is basing that on projections that Chinese salmon consumption will total 240,000 MT in 2025, up from a current 100,000 MT per year, according to company data published in its recently released 2017 report.

Listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Oriental Ocean has over the years vowed to replace imports with local salmon cultured grown in indoor salmon cultivation tanks using “water recirculation technology” and “strictly monitored” water quality gauges.

In 2012, Shandong Oriental Ocean imported 200,000 salmon fish fries from Norway and partnered with the Ocean Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Science in a breeding program centered on Da Ji Jia, a town near Yantai. 

While it uses imported Norwegian fry, Oriental Ocean supplies the finished fish live to retailers. Its customers include the Jusco supermarket (a subsidiary of Japan-based Aeon), which retail the fish in water tanks – a format long preferred by Chinese consumers wary of freshness in buying fish.