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Species We Move
Ten Canadian species with real demand in China: live shellfish commanding the banquet premium, and frozen groundfish moving at container scale.
ATLANTIC & PACIFICLIVE · FRESH · FROZEN
What China buys from Canada
Two markets, one origin story
China's appetite for Canadian seafood runs on two engines, and knowing which one your catch feeds is the first step to selling it well.
The first engine is the frozen container trade, and right now its strongest current is flat species: halibut, flounder and turbot (sold in China as Greenland halibut). Chinese buyers want whole fish, they pay a recognised premium for product flash frozen offshore, and they take delivery by reefer container, which can reach any major Chinese port. This is where consistency, size grading and an unbroken cold chain turn ordinary groundfish into a program.
The second engine is the live and premium shellfish culture: lobster, Dungeness crab and geoduck arriving alive by air for the banquet tables and live tanks where vigour itself is the product, alongside delicacies like sea cucumber and urchin roe with their own devoted buyers. Demand across both engines peaks with the festival calendar, above all Chinese New Year.
If you land or pack any of the species below, you are already holding something China seafood buyers want. Our brokerage supplies the rest: a vetted buyer, payment secured before the product leaves your dock, and the CFIA and GACC pathway navigated with you.
Shellfish: live & premium
China's live and delicacy trade: the products where vigour, size tier and grade set the price.
Finfish & groundfish: frozen
The container trade: frozen-at-sea and plant-processed groundfish where consistency is the premium.
Turbot / Greenland Halibut
Frozen: whole, H&G, fillet (incl. frozen-at-sea)
Featured reading
Start with these three guides
Exporting Canadian flatfish to China
Halibut, flounder and turbot: why the flat species are the strongest lane in the trade right now, and what buyers want them to look like.
Reefer vs live shipping to China
Two very different lanes with very different economics. How to decide whether your product should fly alive or sail frozen.
How China prices Canadian seafood
Grades, size tiers, forms and festival timing: the mechanics behind the number on a China buyer's offer sheet.
Don't see your species?
If China buys it and you land it, we can have the conversation; the pathway is the same.
Ask about your catchFlatfish demand in China is strong right now.
Our buyer is purchasing halibut, flounder and turbot at multiple-container volume: whole fish, flash frozen offshore. Tell us what you land and get a real price read, with nothing owed unless your product sells and ships.