Vietnam's fish cake and surimi exports reached over USD 344 million in 2025, up 15% year-on-year and 13% above 2023, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP). The growth wasn't a one-quarter spike either — Q1 2025 alone brought in more than USD 80 million, up 31% year-on-year, and by the end of that quarter Vietnamese fish cake and surimi products were reaching 43 international markets, including new destinations like Russia, Spain, and the UK. For a buyer looking at this category for the first time, though, the export statistics hide an important distinction: "surimi-based product" is not one item. It's a raw material (surimi) and at least two very different finished goods built from it, and mixing them up in a sourcing conversation is how you end up with a factory quote that doesn't match what you actually wanted.
Kani kama and fish cake are not the same product
Kani kama — the imitation crab stick most Western and Japanese buyers recognize from sushi counters and salad kits — is a formed, flavored, and often colored surimi product engineered to mimic crab meat's texture and taste. It's built for consistency: uniform shred texture, controlled sodium and moisture, standardized crab-flavor seasoning, and packaging sized for retail or foodservice portioning. Fish cake (chả cá in Vietnamese, and the broader category that includes kamaboko-style products across Asia) is a much older, more regionally varied product — surimi paste mixed with starch, seasoning, and sometimes vegetables or other seafood, then steamed, fried, or grilled into blocks, balls, or slices. Fish cake formulations vary heavily by destination market: a fish cake built for a Korean tteokbokki supplier tastes and textures nothing like one built for a Southeast Asian noodle-soup topping. A factory that runs a strong kani kama line isn't automatically equipped to hit the flavor and texture spec a fish cake buyer wants, and vice versa — ask which line your target factory actually specializes in before you assume both are available from the same source.
Where the growth is actually coming from
Per VASEP's reporting, the markets driving 2025's rebound were South Korea, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, and Japan, with the EU emerging as a notable late-2025 growth driver as demand there recovered. That market mix matters for sourcing strategy: Korea and Japan buyers are generally ordering against tighter, more standardized specs (closer to the kani kama end of the category), while China, Hong Kong, and much of Southeast Asia's demand runs closer to traditional fish cake formats sold into foodservice and wet-market-adjacent retail. If you're entering this category as a new buyer, it's worth being explicit with a Vietnamese processor about which end of that spectrum your end market expects — the same plant may quote a completely different price and lead time depending on which one you mean.
The raw material behind both products
Both kani kama and fish cake start from the same base input — frozen surimi block, most commonly made in Vietnam from itoyori (threadfin bream) or other whitefish species with strong gel-forming protein. Gel strength is the number that actually determines what a factory can build from a given batch of surimi: high-gel-strength block supports the springy, sliceable texture kani kama needs, while lower grades are perfectly adequate for softer fish cake formats where texture requirements are less strict. This is also where cost separates the two products — kani kama generally commands a premium because it requires higher-grade surimi input plus more processing steps (forming, coloring, flavoring, individual wrapping), while fish cake production can absorb a wider range of surimi grades and simpler processing.
What to specify before you order
When you approach a Vietnamese surimi-product factory, be specific about: the finished product type (kani kama stick vs. fish cake block/ball/slice), target gel strength or a reference sample if you have one, sodium and moisture targets, whether you need retail-ready packaging or bulk foodservice format, and your destination market's flavor profile expectations. Ask for the surimi grade the plant uses as its base input — a factory that can show you a consistent grade specification, not just a finished-product photo, is the one that can hold quality steady across repeat orders. Given how fast this category has been growing across multiple markets at once in 2025, factories with strong track records are getting busier — locking in a spec and a relationship early is worth more here than shopping for the lowest quote on a single trial order.
Sourcing kani kama / fish cake from Vietnam?
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