is one of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

's top producers of frozen foods and a leader in cold storage warehousing, headquartered in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. Operating through around 80 subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide, its businesses include processed food; logistics; marine products (chiefly roe

Roe

Roe or hard roe is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses of fish and certain marine animals, such as shrimp, scallop and sea urchins...

, shrimp

Shrimp

Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...

, and octopus

Octopus

The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...

); meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

 and poultry

Poultry

Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of producing eggs, meat, and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as "waterfowl"...

; real estate

Real estate

In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...

; and biosciences. The company's bioscience work includes antibody development and manufacturing, immunology

Immunology

Immunology is a broad branch of biomedical science that covers the study of all aspects of the immune system in all organisms. It deals with the physiological functioning of the immune system in states of both health and diseases; malfunctions of the immune system in immunological disorders ; the...

 products, and natural materials processing.

History

The company was founded on December 24, 1942, as Teikoku Marine Products Control Company, with capital participation from 18 fisheries and other companies. It was established in accordance with the Fisheries Control Ordinance that was enacted on May 19, 1942, as a central agency to control seafood-related businesses such as sales of marine products, ice production, and refrigerated storage. On December 1, 1945, the day after the control ordinance was abolished (November 30, 1945), the company was reorganized as a privately held company governed by the commercial code, and was renamed Nippon Reizo Co. Ltd. The new company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange

Tokyo Stock Exchange

The , called or TSE for short, is located in Tokyo, Japan and is the third largest stock exchange in the world by aggregate market capitalization of its listed companies...

in 1949. Nippon Reizon changed its name to Nichirei Corporation in 1985.