The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) opened its first overseas marketing office in Japan in 1987. The goal of the ASMI Japan is to increase general awareness of Alaska seafood as a wild, natural and sustainable resource among Japanese trade and consumers.
To achieve this goal, ASMI Japan conducts a variety ofconsumer and trade PR and promotional activities such as retail promotions, parent-child cooking classes, restaurant menu promotions, high school home-economics class collaborations, as well as trade-targeted shows, seminars and receptions.

For more than 40 years, Japan has been Alaska’s largest and most stable seafood export market. Japan remains today the world’s largest seafood buyer and is a key importer of Alaska seafood items like Pollock surimi, Pollock roe, herring roe, sockeye salmon, king crab and snow crab, as well as others.
In the past ten years, the value of Japanese seafood imports ranged between US $17.23-17.96 billion with import volume ranging between 2.8-2.9 million metric tons.
After China, the United States (Alaska predominantly) is the second largest seafood exporter to Japan (2008 figures), making Japan a crucial market for Alaska seafood and for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

Alexa Tonkovich, Asia Coordinator
311 North Franklin Street. Suite 200
Juneau, AK 99801-1147
1-800-478-2903

E-mail: atonkovich@alaskaseafood.org