Japanese seafood giant Umios acquires Canada's High Liner Foods for CAD 1.25 billion
On October 28, 2026, Japan's Umios Corporation announced the acquisition of Canadian seafood company High Liner Foods for CAD 1.25 billion (approximately GBP 668 million). High Liner Foods is one of North America's leading seafood companies and a long-standing supplier to Umios.
On October 28, 2026, Japan's Umios Corporation reached an acquisition agreement with Canada's High Liner Foods for CAD 1.25 billion (approximately GBP 668 million). High Liner Foods is one of North America's leading seafood companies and a long-standing supplier to Umios.
Umios positions itself as a leading player in the global seafood and marine protein market. The acquisition advances the Japanese group's strategy of building a more integrated global seafood and protein business, with High Liner Foods at the core of its North American expansion.
The relationship between the two parties is not new: High Liner Foods had long supplied Umios as a vendor, and this transaction converts that supply relationship into equity-level integration.
In industry news from the same day (October 28), Canada also announced a separate fisheries funding arrangement: Canada renewed the Atlantic Fisheries Fund, investing more than CAD 300 million over the five years from 2026 to 2031, with the Canadian federal government contributing 60% and the four Atlantic provinces contributing 40%, to support fisheries, aquaculture, infrastructure, research, and export diversification toward Asia and Europe.
According to the General Administration of Customs' April 2026 import and export statistics, China imported 14.595 tonnes of warm-water shrimp (penaeid shrimp, including whiteleg shrimp and black tiger shrimp, etc.; under customs commodity classification code HS 0306.17, which is a commodity classification rather than a single biological species) from Canada that month, with an import value of USD 43,952.0 and an average import price of USD 3,011.44 per tonne.