The kings of sushi and gyozas

According to data from The Fork, reservations in Japanese restaurants represent 14% of the total of those made in Spain through its platform. In addition, they increased 4% year-on-year in 2023. There is no doubt that Japanese cuisine is in fashion.

If you like Japanese food, it is very likely that you have tried some of the products that Cominport brings to our country.. This Madrid company specializes in importing traditional foods from Japanese cuisine: sushi, gyozas, noodles, baos, ramen, sake, teriyaki sauce… Everything you can imagine, they have it. And not only that, but also utensils such as knives, rice cookers, tableware, packaging, etc.

The company, based in the Villaverde Alto neighborhood, began operating almost three decades ago, in 1995, with the aim of bringing the flavors of the world to our country. Thus, Although it specializes in Japanese food, it also imports products from other Asian countries—China, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, etc.—and from the United States, Mexico, Australia, and some European countries.

Over the course of these three decades, Cominport has been establishing contacts with products and suppliers, weaving a dense network in international markets. This has allowed it to set up a extensive catalog of products that it distributes to clients in Spain, Europe—Poland and Portugal, mainly—and North Africaincluding restaurants, hotels, catering services, distributors, wholesalers and supermarkets.

Total, more than 8,000 customers, to whom it distributes from its central warehouses in Madrid and from its branches in Barcelona, ​​Malaga and Alicante.

“Whether you like it or not, everyone ends up buying here. We have second-generation Japanese restaurants as customers,” he explains. The country José Miguel Serrano, co-owner of the company, along with his brothers Jaime and Germán.

The beginnings of Cominport

The Serrano brothers They began selling sea urchins of Galician origin in Japan and the United KingdomWith the experience gained and the contacts made, They began to sell products from Japan to Japanese chefs and to restaurants in our country, as reported in the newspaper.

They thus opened a new access route for this type of products, which previously came through the United States, where Japanese cuisine was much better known and more established than in Spain, and even than on the European continent.

Little by little, His business expanded, first to Portugal, then to Poland. His career did not go unnoticed and In 2015 they received a purchase offer from the Japanese group Takara Holdings, which acquired Cominport and included it in its subsidiary Grupo Foodex.leader in the distribution of Japanese, Asian and fusion food products on the European continent.

Foodex has a catalog of more than 2,500 references and reaches more than 10,000 customers, from 11 warehouses distributed throughout Europe, as it has companies in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Although the Madrid company continues to have some autonomy and continues with its own growth strategy. For example, The Japanese group, through Cominport, took control of the Malaga company Amaran a couple of years ago.also specialized in the distribution of Asian gastronomic products to high-end hotels and restaurants, as reported The Economist.

Cominport had a turnover of 108 million euros in 2023, of which 89 million corresponded to the local marketwhile the rest came from sales in Portugal and Poland, according to data collected by The country. And the company employs 130 people.

The import business

Although competition is tough, the importation of products continues to offer interesting business opportunities. Especially if they are items from lesser-known markets in Spain and Europe.

For example, we recently told the case of MiiN Cosmetics, a company founded by Liling Yang to bring Korean cosmetics products to Europe.

If you are thinking about starting to import, we recommend that you take a look at the 20 tips that we collected in this article.