Thai Union is one of the largest seafood companies in the world and is particularly well known for tuna brands such as John West and Chicken of The Sea.
But in addition to the tuna business, the firm also has two other core operations: frozen shrimp and value-added products, the latter of which includes its relatively new snacking business.
Its key snack brand currently is MONORI, a brand initially established under the company’s widespread sustainability programme as a way to utilise seafood waste from other operations.
“The frozen shrimp business in particular yielded a lot of shrimp heads which are removed as part of the processing, so there tends to be a lot of raw material leftover which we felt there was a very strong opportunity to upcycle with,” Thai Union Commercial Excellence Director for Frozen Foods and Snacks Thanapol Thanawastien said at the recent ThaiFex-Anuga Asia 2026 show in Bangkok, Thailand.
“This is what led to the creation of the first MONORI product, Crispy Shrimp Cheeks — what we did was to peel the shell of the shrimp heads and leave the soft parts, which were battered and deep fried to become this snack.”
Shrimp cheeks may sound like an unusual item, but its success over the past eight years has spawned the creation of even more products under the MONORI banner, testament to consumer acceptance.
This is strongly supported by the shrimp cheeks being minimally processed, and becoming very crispy after being battered and fried, akin to a regular chip or crisp.
“Following this, we also developed the Crispy Salmon Skin snack. Although fish skin snacks are not new in this region, we made sure to stand apart by only using salmon as most other brands use dory skin,” he added.
“We then realised that there is no need to only look at using byproducts to make MONORI snacks and have since also made Crispy Squid, which uses whole circles of squid so consumers are able to really get entire bits of squid with every bite.”
Protein-rich — but not on purpose
MONORI’s focus on using byproducts was rooted in its sustainability plans, but ended up meeting all the demands consumers have when it comes to snacking today.
“The core of this brand has always been to use real seafood as the base and this is clearly reflected in the ingredients list: Shrimp makes up 84%, salmon skin makes up over 70%, and squid makes up 71% of each respective snack,” Thanawastien added.
“This helps us to really stand out as many other seafood snacks in the market may be labelled as seafood but actually are mixed with a large amount of flour instead, so the protein content would be lower.”
The brand’s growth was also met with a stroke of luck with the rise of both the healthier snacking trend leading to an increased demand for protein, as well as the whole foods trend.
“It just so happened that the MONORI products met these needs, and it really helped that seafood is a good natural protein option. Each 25g serving of MONORI snacks can give 6g to 7g of protein,” he said.
“This has helped us to grow not only locally but also in exports to several other foreign markets including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong. These are all markets which are very familiar with seafood and we found relatively easy to introduce MONORI to.”
Other markets include the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Dubai and soon-to-be Singapore as well, riding on the snacking trend in all of these markets, and especially the protein trend in the US.
Making seafood consumption easy
Another of MONORI’s core concepts is bringing real seafood to consumers in the easiest possible fashion, increasing convenience in order to draw interest.
“Seafood may be enjoyed in many markets and settings, but requires cooking and preparation more often than not, which is not always easy or affordable,” he said.
“There are also many places which are nowhere near a coast, making seafood even harder to find and even more expensive, so we really wanted to up the convenience factor and combine this with other current consumer needs to make good snacks.”
This is combination with an increasing demand especially from younger consumers for sustainability in their food choices, which MONORI also hits with its upcycling roots.
“Younger consumers, especially Gen Z’s, may not really be willing to pay a huge premium for a product simply being more sustainable — but if a far better product is available on shelves at an acceptably comparable price, it is certain that this is the one they would go for,” he added.
