World fisheries production hit the ceiling and it continues since it exceeded 140 million tons in 2000. A percentage of used resources beyond limits or with excessive fishing reached 70% and if the rate of an increase in the world's population is considered, it is a concern that marine products as food resources will be exhausted before long. It is said that 30% of marine products caught in the world are dumped at a fishery site for bycatch or rotten due to a failure in freshness control and is not used. The development and effective utilization of unused resources, reuse and effective utilization of dumped fisheries resources are essential for solving this problem.

Next, let's see the fisheries situation in Japan. The annual consumption of an edible marine fish and shellfish in Japan is around 8million tons and it has been slightly decreasing over the last 10 years. The domestic amount of production is also decreasing, so it may be just a matter of time that the self-sufficiency ratio of an edible marine fish and shellfish will be less than 50%. The mean annual consumption per capita in Japan can be calculated when the amount of the total demand of domestic consumption of an edible marine fish and shellfish is divided by the population of Japan and it's around 70 kg. But the annual amount of supply of the genuine food of an edible marine fish and shellfish per capita is between 35 and 40 kg. It can be read that the remnants including the head, the internal organs, skin, and a bone reach approximately 50% of the number of catches from these two numbers. Effective utilization and adding the high value of such enormous processing remnants and unused parts are an urgent need in Japan also.

General waste from an average household and offices is 50 million tons or more and industrial waste is 500 million tons or more regarding the amount of waste discharge in Japan. The amount of the discharge of food waste accounts for about 30% of general waste and its not a small matter within the waste problem. The government advances policies to curb large quantities of substitute waste produced by the food manufacturing process, generation of unsold goods and leftovers of food, reduce the volume and to reuse them as raw materials of feed and fertilizer. The recycling of resources from wasted food of food-related business operators including the manufacturing industry, the distribution industry and the food‐service industry and so on is being promoted by the so-called Food Recycling Law enacted in 2000.

The waste problem aside, seafood is still an important source of animal protein for Japanese. Seafood has supplied about 40% of animal protein over the last 10 years. Although it has been a long time since Japanese people eat less fishes than before and it was viewed as a problem, such a tendency isn't recognized and there hasn't been a big change in the source of supply of animal protein over the last 10 years.

On the other hand, the amount of production of processed marine products tends to decrease in most items. Especially, the amount of production of a fish jelly product dropped to less than half of its peak, so it is hard to escape the conclusion that the situation of the fish paste industry is now coming to a big turning point. There's not a big change in an amount of consumption of fish and shellfish over the last 10 years. Nevertheless, the amount of production of processed marine product decreases. It's probably because consuming fish and shellfish as fresh food tends to increase, rather than consuming them as processed marine product.

It must be considered that a social situation changes with the times, the fishing industry and science of fisheries also change along with it. A former field of processing and utilization of science of fisheries was subdivided and specialized into protein, a lipid, a carbohydrate, an enzyme, biologically active substances, freshness preservation, food hygiene and so on. A tendency of examining or studying various problems regarding processing and utilization from a broad perspective is weakening. Gradually there's less and less chance to educate and study an soily and smelling-bad field in the first place like processing and utilization of sea food in a cross-sectoral manner under a subdivided learning system like today. It seems the time has come to reconsider the science of fisheries as practical science by going back to the basics of processing and utilization.

The Japanese government is trying to recommend and implement measures and policies aimed at sound development of the fishery processing industry and fishery marketing. The fishery processing industry and fishery marketing mutually cooperate with fisheries and enhance the sanitation management and the quality control system by introducing the HACCP system, try to make local seafood products to become a brand and promote reorganizing a wholesale market of sea food for supplying sea food that meets the public needs. In addition, we aim to reduce the environmental impact by promoting the recycling of remnants of fish processing and so on. What is the role of the science of fisheries or the science of fish processing utilization for such efforts?

In the field of utilization and processing of sea food with a weak industrial infrastructure and on a small scale, it is not easy for individual companies and laboratories to independently carry out and achieve the above measures and policies and so on.

There is a wide variety of problems ranging from raw materials to processing and distribution. So considering a new science such as traceability and gene-related fields is also needed.

To resolve these problems, a cross-sectional involvement of people who have a wide range of views and can make full use of various technologies including cutting-edge technology is probably essential.

If various problems about processing and utilization generated from the local industry and so on are understood and when the feedback to solutions obtained through the science of fisheries is returned to the local industry in its own way or style, it will lead to the revitalization of the marine product processing industry and also the development of industry in the country. The major issue for the Seafood Processing Utilization Research Institute should play probably lies here.