Sometimes (as many people expect) gastronomic traditions have very little tradition. Tiramisu goes with carbonara pasta, parmesan cheese or, speaking of Spain, espetos malagueños or cachopo. There are historians who believe that if we dig a little, we will see that they are not as old as they seem and that they did not originate where we believe they did. Salmon sushi is a good example of this.

Given its enormous success, it would be reasonable to think that it was a stroke of genius from ancient, old Japanese culinary history; but the truth is that just forty years ago, sashimi or salmon nigiris were very hard to find in restaurants in the country. Its worldwide fame is owed not to the long tradition of Japanese sushi masters, but to the good sense of Norwegian marketing.

Salmon sashimi please. No matter if it’s in the most exclusive restaurant district in Kyoto or a shopping mall in a European city, no matter what Japanese restaurant you go to, the menu will likely include nigiris, sashimi, and salmon maki rolls. Just forty years ago, this wasn’t the case.

In Japan, of course, sushi and sashimi were consumed, but today other, less popular ingredients triumphed. “Bluefin tuna dominated this high-end segment, but many other types of fish and seafood were also in high demand,” says Bjorn Eirik Olsen, a Japanese trade expert who played a key role in the spread of Norwegian salmon in Asia.

Wasn’t salmon consumed? Yes, but not like what we see on restaurant menus today. In Japan, it was not uncommon to start the day with a nice bite of Pacific salmon, but this no longer had much to do with the raw pieces that crown the rice balls of nigiri: the fish were dried, salted and baked in the oven. Then they were grilled with rice or miso soup.

Japanese households bought salmon, but the habit of eating it raw was not common among them. And this was normal. Mostly wild salmon caught in Pacific waters were consumed, while specimens with less oil, a hard and dry texture than Norwegian salmon were consumed. Moreover, there was a risk of containing parasites, which made it recommended to cook them for safety.

Two markets, one solutionTo understand the introduction of Norwegian salmon to Japanese restaurants and its tremendous success in sushi, it is necessary to understand how Norway and Japan’s fishing industries fared in the last third of the last century. The Scandinavian country faced a surplus due to the promotion of aquaculture, while Japan found itself needing to import fish due to overfishing and a population that was still growing at the time.

Norway knew how to see the opportunities of such a scenario. Businessmen had started betting on aquaculture in the 60s and 70s; over time, with technical developments and government support, production soon exceeded what the small local market could afford. And Japan was a promising option to market the product. It had been a self-sufficient country for decades, but the lack of regulation led to negative consequences that became clear in the 1990s.

“At that time, Japan had gone from being a self-sufficient country to one that could only meet 50% of its total fish demand, so it had to look for external sources to meet its own needs,” recalls Fjord Tours. In this environment, the Norwegian government and the country’s fishing industry joined forces in 1986 to launch Project Japan. The goal was ambitious: to double fish exports to the Asian country within three years.

Delicatessen or “chicken of the sea”? Norwegian companies determined to try their luck in Japan had to ask themselves a few questions: How could they gain a foothold in the local market? Were they interested in competing with the industry that already sold Pacific salmon, or was it worth looking for new approaches? The problem was not trivial. In the 1980s, Japan exported Norwegian salmon to be fried and served with miso soup, but this was not a very attractive business.

“Norwegian salmon could have been brought in to compete with this dish, but that would have meant we would have been nothing more than chicken of the sea,” Olsen admits. “I thought we should focus on introducing Norwegian salmon, rather than grilled salmon, to the luxury market of raw fish used for sushi and sashimi. Prices were generally three to ten times higher.

The big challenge. But wanting to enter the promising Japanese market is one thing, knowing how to do it is another. Norway did not start on good terms. The Norway-Asia Business Summit explains that while salmon is eaten in Japan, the fish in the Pacific is “salted, dried and roasted.” Customers also did not seem to be willing to take a chance on raw salmon. Suspicions of parasites in uncooked meat persisted, adding to the difficulties inherent in introducing a new and foreign product to a traditional market.

Tokyo Weekend At first, he assures us, customers complained about its color, smell, taste, and even the shape of its head. “Industry workers claimed that farmed salmon smelled like river fish, was the wrong color, and had a bad consistency,” Olsen adds.

With you, Noruee hello. It was obvious. The best way to break away from existing products and carve out a new niche was to present yourself as something new, something different. Same fish; different fish.

“To differentiate Norwegian salmon from Pacific salmon, I suggested that ours should not be called by its Japanese name. All other Norwegian fish species had been translated, but there was something different here,” recalls Olsen, who was quick to join a Japan Project to expand the local product into new markets. “We are introducing a new brand” Japaneseize Find the name of Norwegian salmon and convert it Norue samonwritten in katakana characters. “Nobody had heard of it and nobody believed it, but we launched promotions for raw salmon such as Noruee saamon, which is suitable for sushi and sashimi.”

From the pure waters of the north. This was not the only strategy implemented by the Scandinavian authorities and industry, which was aware of the suspicions raised by the parasites and undertook to emphasize that the salmon came from aquaculture farms in pure, fresh water. The Norwegian Trade Council contacted chefs who wanted to try the fish from the northern waters, advertising campaigns were launched, the ambassador started serving salmon to his guests… Even the country’s royal family joined the promotional tour.

An unexpected threat. If raw salmon is one of today’s most iconic sushi ingredients, it is due to a combination of advertising skill and pure luck. The Norway-Asia Business Summit recognizes that one of the most important moments of the trade offensive occurred in the 90s, triggered by a scenario that had not previously seemed promising for the sector. At the beginning of the decade, production in fish farms increased to such an extent that even the European and US markets could not absorb it, so in the midst of the price collapse, the sector devoted itself to storing large quantities of fish. frozen fish.

“In 1991, as prices continued to fall, the Fish Farmers Sales Association (FOS) and many companies in the salmon fishing industry declared bankruptcy, along with bank loans to the industry. This escalating crisis led to government intervention to get rid of frozen salmon quickly and prevent the entire industry from going under,” he recalls.

This posed a threat not just to the industry, but to Project Japan itself, which has been trying for years to build a new brand image around Norwegian salmon, clearly focused on sushi and sashimi.

…And the final blow came. If such cheap frozen Norwegian salmon were available on grills and served with miso soup, would that have rendered Olsen and the rest of the team’s efforts ineffective? How would the Japanese fishing industry, which is assured that the Norwegian product comes not to compete with local fish but to complement its offering, react?

Although it seemed like a threat, it turned into an opportunity when the Norwegian sector reached an agreement with Nichirei, a large Japanese frozen food company. The agreement was simple: Noruee would be provided with large quantities of fish at a good price in exchange for keeping the saamon label and, most importantly, offering it for “raw consumption” as sushi.

“A beautiful color”. If this distribution support was not enough, Japan was plunged into a crisis that affected the purchasing power of companies and families that affected the consumption of sushi and sashimi. Japanese who wanted to eat it went to establishments where the food was offered at affordable prices. And among them, those who set their prices most without a template were those who used the popular belts to move the plates.

It seems anecdotal, but it was another stroke of luck. “The kids were passing around different sushi trays and they could pick out the one they thought was the tastiest. They had no prejudices. When they saw that the salmon had a nice color, they took it off the belt. They liked it, so their parents had to do it. Try that too. As a result, attitudes toward raw salmon started to change,” Olsen recalls. By the mid-1990s, the role of Norwegian salmon in the country had already changed.

“Putting salmon on rice is easy”. Project Japan’s success has been so great that since the 1990s, many articles have been published about the fundamental aspects of the project, even within the fishing industry. But Olsen stresses that if the initiative has succeeded in making Norwegian salmon an almost essential part of tataki, nigiri or sashimi, it’s not because those responsible for the program have come up with a groundbreaking recipe. The key, he stresses, is in the image.

“Our salmon for raw consumption in Japan was not a product innovation, but a marketing innovation. It’s easy to put a piece of salmon on vinegared rice. But the challenge was not in the product, but in people’s minds,” he argues. “Changing the perception of importers, wholesalers, supermarket chains, chefs, journalists and consumers was the task we set out to do. Changing the perception of 120 million conservative Japanese seafood lovers would take time.”

Image by Crystal Jo (Unsplash) and Felippe Lopes (Unsplash)

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