Yumimaru Makes S$13K/mth Selling Shoyuzuke Sashimi On Shopee

Singapore’s meals scene supplies every kind of cuisines and fashionable consuming concepts; nonetheless, salmon dishes have traditionally been restricted to some regular preparations—grilled, pan-seared, or served plain as sashimi.

Trying to find to provide a model new answer to have the benefit of salmon, James Looi co-founded Yumimaru collectively alongside together with his faculty good buddy in November 2022. The enterprise’s speciality is shoyuzuke salmon, the place sashimi-grade salmon is marinated in a handmade soy sauce combine. 

It’s a Japanese preparation method, and James likens the flavour profile of Yumimaru’s salmon to that of sukiyaki—a most popular Japanese hotpot dish acknowledged for its rich, sweet-savoury broth—solely lighter, with the clear, delicate model of fish taking the lead.

Together with salmon, Yumimaru moreover supplies shoyuzuke ebi (prawns) and hotate (scallops), alongside somen—Japanese chilly noodles—that serves as a refreshing accompaniment to the marinated seafood.

These merchandise are purchased on Shopee solely as quickly as per week—and they also generate a formidable widespread month-to-month revenue of between S$11,000 and S$13,000, with product sales in June 2025 barely exceeding the upper differ.

We spoke to James on his entrepreneurial journey, proper right here’s what the 28-year-old wanted to share about setting up his mannequin from the underside up.

A lean schedule

James and his co-founder every run Yumimaru as a side hustle, whereas holding full-time jobs. Though he didn’t disclose rather a lot particulars about his co-founder, James shared that he works as a Product sales Development Guide at Airwallex, closing provides with consumers.

Given their weekday commitments, the mannequin runs on a lean schedule, working solely on Saturdays. 

Manufacturing often begins at 8AM, with the workers slicing latest seafood and preparing their signature marinades. They wrap up by 1PM, merely in time for same-day provide—a key measure the duo maintains to guard freshness and assure prime quality in every order.

Nevertheless getting to date wasn’t easy. With no prior F&B experience, the duo spent a few month on evaluation and progress, going by means of virtually 30 iterations sooner than perfecting their recipe.

Even after they started selling, the refinement didn’t stop. “We continued to tweak the recipe as time went on,” James acknowledged, together with that the duo listened intently to purchaser ideas—what they most popular, what might presumably be greater—and adjusted accordingly.

Amongst Yumimaru’s selections, the distinctive Yumimaru Salmon—obtainable each sliced or in a noodle-style scale back—stays your best option, accounting for 60% of the mannequin’s product sales proper now.

The mannequin makes use of Norwegian salmon sourced from suppliers in Singapore, which James believes supplies the freshest prime quality. 

He moreover recognized a typical misunderstanding amongst consumers: that the freshest salmon comes from Japan. In reality, salmon won’t be native to Japan, and although it’s now a staple in Japanese delicacies, the fish was solely launched to the market inside the Eighties, when Norway launched a targeted promoting and advertising advertising marketing campaign typically known as “Enterprise Japan” to promote its surplus salmon to Japanese consumers.

A great deal of room for progress

Initially, Yumimaru purchased their merchandise by means of WhatsApp, leveraging the Take App platform which helps firms deal with orders and streamline communication with purchasers.

However, they’ve since migrated to Shopee to benefit from choices equivalent to purchaser evaluations, vouchers, less complicated refund processes, and a wider differ of accepted price methods. 

Furthermore, Shopee’s algorithm boosts visibility by recommending associated merchandise based mostly totally on widespread searches—equivalent to “salmon”—usually that features Yumimaru among the many many excessive outcomes.

So far, it appears to be like as if the shift has paid off. In step with James, Yumimaru managed to interrupt even inside merely 4 months, and the mannequin has generated an entire of S$270,000 in revenue. It moreover has a imply month-to-month purchaser retention cost of spherical 30%.

Nonetheless, James sees a great deal of room for progress. He shared that his fast goal is to double Yumimaru’s month-to-month revenue and preserve that diploma for six months to a yr sooner than considering extra progress—doubtlessly into markets like Malaysia.

“In the long run, we want to attain some extent the place we’re capable of step once more from the enterprise and by no means should work every Saturday,” James acknowledged. “Nevertheless hiring people and investing in gear costs money—and we’re not the sort to pour in capital with out some certainty it’ll work out.”

• Uncover out additional about Yumimaru proper right here.
• Study totally different articles we’ve written on Singaporean firms proper right here.

Featured Image Credit score rating: Yumimaru