INTERVIEW Samjin Food aims to elevate fishcake to new 'seafood protein' category

Samjin Food's signature cheese-filled fishcake croquette / Courtesy of Samjin Food

By Ko Dong-hwan

• Published Mar 5, 2026 7:00 AM KST
• Updated Mar 10, 2026 1:39 PM KST

Cheap street food meets diversity, global demands

BUSAN — Fishcake in Korea is best known as a street food, skewered on wooden sticks, simmering in broth and sold for 1,500 won ($1.04) or less per piece. For decades, this popular image of fishcake has drawn the attention of tourists, making it one of the most well-known K-foods.

Samjin Food, a company that started in 1953, is breaking free from the food’s stereotypical form to magnify its nutritional benefits and diversify its flavors and shapes. To its global markets, the company has branded fishcake as “seafood protein,” in hopes of growing it to the level of other meat categories.

In 2023, CEO Park Yong-jun confirmed rising global interest in seafood and the new protein category at the Global Food Marketplace (SIAL) Paris, one of the largest global food exhibitions.

Park, 43, currently exports fishcake to 13 countries including the United States, Indonesia and Vietnam. He runs three offline fishcake bars in Australia and plans to open three new locations in China this year. He has hosted six pop-up bars in Taiwan since last July and plans to open a flagship bar there this year.

Park dubs these bars a “premium fishcake bakery store,” where freshly deep-fried fishcake in various shapes and flavors are displayed.

“The best fishcake is when it is right out of the fryer,” Park said in an interview with The Korea Times at Samjin Food headquarters in the southeastern city of Busan.

Fishcake is a fish flesh paste, also known as surimi, with its water-soluble protein removed, leaving only muscle protein for long-term preservation. The malleable paste can be formed in shapes of ball, bar, patty or stick and go well with various powdered seasoning coatings.

“Global consumers first learned about fishcake from K-dramas or K-pop stars. Our fishcakes are all ready-to-eat for convenient consumption,” Park said.

The diversity of Samjin Food’s fishcakes, according to the third-generation successor, sets it apart from Japanese firms with deeper roots in the industry that are more inclined to preserving traditional customs. Park believes the true way to protect tradition is not safeguarding it but adapting it to new demands.

“Seven or eight years ago I was invited by the city authorities of Fukuoka and Shimonoseki in Japan to share my knowledge on operating my company. The Japanese cities were seeing dwindling local fishcake markets and wanted to learn from me. But some of them didn’t agree with me and cussed at me, calling my strategies a sham,” Park said. “If they refuse to create new things, they will remain as just a manufacturer.”

Advanced manufacturing

Park said Samjin is the only Korean fishcake firm with a worldwide fish supply. From more than a dozen countries — including Russia, Indonesia, India, Vietnam and the U.S. — he imports boneless pollack, cod or threadfin bream from the waters of Southeast Asia and Alaska, or the Atlantic Ocean. The virtually “unlimited supply” of fish come from fishing grounds certified by the Marine Stewardship Council to ensure and manage global seafood sustainability.

The company now has two surimi manufacturing plants in Busan. Park is ramping up automation in the facilities to increase productivity and consistency in quality.

“We’re using more data and less human senses to determine our surimi’s quality, an unprecedented practice in the industry here for the past 60 years. Our latest production lineup now produces one ton of surimi in just an hour,” Park said.

Park’s ambitions are growing as Samjin has cemented its market share here, posting record sales of 110 billion won ($74.6 million) last year, an increase by 14 percent from the previous year, and an operating profit of 6.1 billion won, a jump of 25 percent. The growth came after Samjin became a listed company last December. Since posting annual sales of 1.8 billion when he first took over the business from his father in 2013, those figures have gone up steeply.

The largest contributor to the growth was the firm’s expansion of premium fishcake bars, from its first location at Busan Station in 2014 to train stations, department stores and discount chain stores nationwide.

“There were times when fishcake stores were considered unworthy by the luxury department stores here. Now, their merchandise directors want to house at least one fishcake bar at each department store due to its popularity,” Park said.