Japanese tuna giant Sojitz has snapped up the £273m-turnover seafood group and owner of New England Seafood International (NESI), Sealaska Foods International Holdings (SFIH).
Acquiring 100% of SFIH, Sojitz will rename it to Sojitz Seafood International Holdings, retaining subsidiaries including NESI, which is one of the largest suppliers of white fish into UK supermarkets.
Sojitz has earmarked Europe and the US as strong potential markets for white fish and value-added products such as sushi.
The company aims to win sustainable growth abroad by “expanding Japanese-style products and industry know-how” to new regions and by “strengthening product development and manufacturing capabilities” in an approach tailored to local demand and business practices.
Sojitz operates with an integrated value chain covering raw fish procurement to sales into supermarkets, and will work to combine its buying function with that of SFIH to boost margins and improve supply resilience.
“In addition, the companies will work together to develop and sell high value-added products through joint use of each group’s product development and processing technologies,” a statement by Sojitz said.
It added that the group will “collaborate on expanding transaction volumes through cross-selling techniques” using a combined sales network.
SFIH made just £26k in pre-tax profit in the year to 31 December 2025, off the back of a £6.6m operating profit – itself down from £8.6m in 2024. Its sales growth in the year largely reflected wider inflation in fish prices.
NESI was bought up by Sealaska in 2020 for an undisclosed sum.
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