Tawara Kanzume

Founded in 1929 in Choshi, Chiba Prefecture, on the Pacific coast of the Kanto region. Choshi Port ranks among the highest-volume fishing ports in Japan, and Tawara Kanzume built its reputation there as a specialist in canned Pacific saury, or sanma, the autumn knife fish so central to Japanese coastal cuisine. The company later expanded into mackerel and sardines. During the 1960s Tawara Kanzume found considerable export success supplying the United Kingdom, continental Europe, Africa, and South Asia before exchange rate shifts redirected the business toward the domestic Japanese market.