Japan Frozen Coho Salmon Market Stuck in Price Deadlock, Salted Fillets Stall at 1,200 Yen/kg

On November 13, 2026, Japan's frozen coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) market fell into a complete standstill. With no actual transactions concluded between importers and buyers, the trade has been unable to form an official market quotation.

At the heart of the deadlock is the inverted processing margin. Salted fillet prices have long been stuck at 1,200 yen/kg (USD 7.51/kg), with large volumes of unsold inventory piling up in distribution channels. Working backward from this finished-product price, secondary processors believe headed-and-gutted (H/G) raw material prices must fall below 900 yen/kg (USD 5.63/kg) for processing to proceed without incurring an immediate operating loss.

Major importers holding large H/G inventories face the opposite constraint: if they cannot ship at 1,200 yen/kg (USD 7.51/kg) or higher, they will suffer severe losses. Buyers and sellers cannot bridge this price gap, spot trading has essentially halted, and no genuine transaction prices can be established.

With wholesale trading frozen, major importers holding large H/G positions have turned to processing raw material into salted fillets through their own processing facilities or on a toll-processing basis. This has further intensified downstream pressure: salted fillet inventories continue to accumulate, while higher finished-product retail prices have already caused Japan's domestic consumption to fall by an estimated 15% or more.

Meanwhile, prolonged cold storage has sharply raised traders' carrying costs. Rather than cutting prices to recover cash, sellers insist on defending and lifting the price floor. Some buyers are deliberately purchasing smaller volumes of high-priced spot cargo from Chile to establish a high-price quotation benchmark.

Upward price pressure also stems from broader supply constraints in the North Pacific: the commercial catch of Alaska sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) has been poor, and the autumn chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) catch in Hokkaido and Sanriku has likewise been weak, with quotations for substitute seafood categories in the Japanese market generally higher. Seller nominal quotes currently range from 1,350 yen/kg (USD 8.45/kg) to 1,400 yen/kg (USD 8.76/kg), but spot trading at these levels has essentially stopped.

In contrast to the standstill in H/G and salted fillets, Japan's frozen Trim-C coho salmon fillet inventories were completely depleted by August 2026, immediately triggering a surge in Chilean shipments to Japan. Spot prices for Trim-C fillets currently hold at around 1,750 yen/kg (USD 10.95/kg). Market participants expect this price level to come under pressure around early 2027 as large volumes of arrivals begin entering Japanese ports this month. Japan's annual Trim-C fillet consumption in the previous year was approximately 20,000 tonnes, and domestic supply is expected to expand further as processors work through accumulated H/G inventories.