Inabata asks "Why not frozen sushi?" with new product format

Inabata & Co., an Osaka, Japan-based frozen food manufacturing and processing company, announced the start of a trial of new frozen sushi products at the 2023 Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona, Spain.

“There’s frozen pizza, there’s frozen pasta, why not frozen sushi? That’s the first thing that came into our minds.” Inabata Food Business Development Manager Fubuki Ozaki told SeafoodSource. “When you eat it, you have to microwave it. You microwave it for a minute and a half, leave it at room temperature for around 15 to 20 minutes, and then it’s ready to eat,."

Inabata is making the products at its facilities in Vietnam, using Suri rice-milling machines and a conventional freezing process. According to Ozaki, frozen sushi is not entirely new in Japan, but it's generally more expensive than fresh sushi since the freezing process used there incorporates alcohol, which carries a bigger expense. Inabata has created a special seasoning for the sushi rice that does not require an alcohol-based freezing technique, Ozaki said.

“We don’t do that. We just use usual freezing practices," he said. “We have the technology to make good protein and sushi rice. [The] Suri [machine] is the most-important to [the] sushi,” Sakamoto said. “We teach in [our] Vietnam factories how to cook the rice.”

Inabata Food Sales Manager Asami Sakamoto said the Covid-19 pandemic created a much bigger market for frozen sushi.

“In Europe, there is a culture of frozen sushi. In Japan, we’ve had no frozen sushi culture before. But now, after Covid some has been coming," she said.

Inabata is also developing a line of frozen sushi rolls for the U.S. market, which prefers roll-style sushi versus nigiri, Sakamoto said.

Photo by Bhavana Scalia-Bruce/SeafoodSource