Saving Seafood

The World Biggest Fish Market Tsukiji Moved To Toyosu. How Is The New Market Doing?

February 26, 2019 — If you are a sushi lover, most likely you have eaten fish from the Tsukiji Market in Tokyo. It would not be an overstatement that Tsukiji served as the foundation of the current global popularity of sushi.

The 23-hectare Tsukiji opened in 1935, and became the space for over a thousand vendors dealing with the freshest seafood from all over the world. In 2015, the market traded around 1,700 tons of seafood, and the sales amounted to $14 million a day, although the figures are declining lately due to competition with other routes of seafood distribution.

Because Tukiji was built to accommodate the railroad-based transportation system, the facilities became outdated for the modern truck-based system. As a result, relocation of the market became an agenda in 1960s. After multiple discussions and postponements over the past years, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) finally declared the move to the new location in Toyosu, which is less than two miles away from Tsukiji, in 2001.

Read the full story at Forbes

Japan’s ‘King of Tuna’ Pays Record $3 Million for Bluefin at New Tokyo Fish Market

January 7, 2018 — The first tuna auction of the year at Tokyo’s new fish market set a high bar on Saturday after a restaurant chain paid a record price — more than $3 million — for a giant bluefin tuna.

The city’s famed Tsukiji fish market was relocated to the new space, in the Toyosu neighborhood, late last year to make way for the 2020 Olympics. The market was well known for its pre-dawn tuna auctions, a tradition that is continuing at the new location.

On Saturday, dozens of buyers walked along row after row of giant tuna, examining the fish before making their bids. The $5.3 billion enclosed, air-conditioned facility at Toyosu is a far cry from the grime and grit of Tsukiji, which served as the city’s main fish market for 83 years.

Read the full story at The New York Times

E-commerce making Tokyo’s famed fish markets obsolete

June 14, 2017 — By the time Tokyo’s new auction site is up and running, it may be time to question if it is needed at all.

Even as the Tokyo government wrangles with the issue of moving the Tsukiji wholesale market to a new – and possibly polluted – location, innovative companies are forming more direct purchasing and marketing channels that bypass Tokyo’s central market.

Despite a strong tradition of Japanese consumers buying fish from markets in person, Japanese seafood sellers are taking advantage of the internet to match buyer and seller, use air links and refrigerated parcel delivery services, and, by cutting out the layers of middlemen, return a larger share of the consumer price to fishermen.

A seafood trading website called SCSS debuted in 2009 as a collaboration between Osaka-based Syunzai Ltd., a seafood dealer that also operates food sales websites, and Tokyo-based Mitsuiwa Corp., an IT development company. Delivery is arranged using the airline ANA and nationwide refrigerated and frozen parcel delivery is provided by Yamato Transport Co., Ltd.

The service connects buyers directly to about 1,500 fishing cooperatives and local brokers at ports, who are the sellers. The approximately 100 registered purchasers are retailers, foodservice distributors and brokers. SCSS operates as a trading platform, rather than actually taking ownership of the product.

The company makes its money from membership fees – it costs about JPY 100,000 (USD 898, EUR 804) to join, plus JPY 10,500 (USD 94, EUR 84) monthly, and from a two percent commission from sellers and an 11.5 percent from buyers. The most popular use of the site is in finding a home for non-target small-quantity bycatch for which the seller may have no sales channel.

Fishermen take digital photos or movies of the actual fish as they are landed and post them to the site. Buyers can view and bid on these in real-time. There are designated pickup locations for the parcel service at ports around Japan. The product arrives fresher than that which goes through the auction channel. As the sales are recorded electronically, traceability is ensured. The site processes payments, so buyers make a single payment to the site operator, even when they deal with multiple sellers.

Another service in a similar vein is Chihou Sousei Network Co. (CSN), headed by Ryohei Nomoto. The company air-freights freshly caught fish from across Japan to its processing facility on the grounds of Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, and distributes the produce either within Tokyo or again by air. About 40 percent of the product is sent overseas.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Bluefin Tuna Sells for $632,000 at Tsukiji’s New Year Auction

January 5, 2016 — TOKYO — A sushi chain boss paid $632,000 for a 466-pound bluefin tuna at auction on Thursday.

The 74.2 million yen winning bid for the prized but imperiled species was the second highest ever after a record 155.4 million yen bid in 2013 at the annual New Year auction at the famed Tsukiji market.

Kiyomura Corp. owner Kiyoshi Kimura posed, beaming, with the gleaming, man-sized fish, which was caught off the coast of northern Japan’s Aomori prefecture.

His company, which runs the Sushi Zanmai chain, often wins the auction. This year’s purchase works out to $1,356 per pound.

Japanese are the biggest consumers of the torpedo-shaped bluefin tuna, and surging consumption of sushi has boosted demand, as experts warn the species could go extinct.

A report by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the North Pacific Ocean last year put the population of bluefin tuna at 2.6 percent of its “unfished” size, down from an earlier assessment of 4.2 percent.

Read the full story at NBC News

Japan Copes with the Disappearing Eel

January 3, 2017 — One hot evening last July, I visited the Michelin-starred unagi, or eel, restaurant Nodaiwa, which sits in a quiet basement beneath Tokyo’s glamorous Ginza shopping district. Next door is the world’s most famous sushi restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, which was the subject of a documentary from 2012 called “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.” The restaurant is now so famous that a sign, written in English, sits outside its entrance, asking visitors not to take photographs.

In recent years, less benign developments have forced Nodaiwa to place a sign at its entrance as well. Whenever I visit, I count myself lucky to find the following message written on it, in Japanese: “Today we have natural Japanese eel.”

The restaurant started serving grilled eel out of a timber farmhouse, near the famous Tsukiji Fish Market, about two hundred years ago. And through five generations of continuous operation such a sign was unnecessary, even laughable, given the abundance of Japan’s native species of freshwater eel. But, in 2013, Japan’s government added Anguilla japonica to its official Red List of endangered fish, after researchers found that wild unagi populations had declined by about ninety per cent in the course of just three decades.

At Tsukiji, wholesale prices for farm-raised unagi imported from China immediately surged to a record high of around forty U.S. dollars per kilogram, and remained there for much of 2013. Prices for the wild-caught, “natural Japanese” eels served at upscale restaurants like Nodaiwa climbed even higher, by as much as fifty or sixty per cent.

But the government had been late to recognize the extent of the problem, which had already taken a toll on many famous restaurants specializing in kabayaki, a signature unagi preparation. In March, 2012, a year before the species was declared endangered, the beloved unagi restaurant Suekawa closed its doors, after sixty-five years of business, and it was followed a month later by the popular restaurant Yoshikawa. Then, in May of 2012, one of Japan’s best-loved kabayakirestaurants, called Benkei, closed its doors after more than six decades of serving eel in Tokyo’s historic “lower city.” The restaurants that survived were buying eels for ten times the price that they’d paid just eight years earlier, according to one vender at Tsukiji Fish Market. The family restaurant chain Hanaya decided to pull eel dishes from its summer menu.

Read the full story at the New Yorker

MASSACHUSETTS: The plan to combine fishing, tourism, and the waterfront to invigorate a New England city

November 17, 2016 — Working waterfronts along the Eastern seaboard are slowly dying out. As rising sea temperatures result in different fish migration patterns and locations, fishermen are struggling to adapt and keep up. The phenomenon is believed by many scientists to be due to climate change—the effects of which are most prominently evidenced on the East Coast according to a 2009 article, “Progress in Oceanography,” which found that waters in the northeast saw their temperatures rise at twice the global rate between 1982 and 2006. 

The port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, however, has remained strong. Since 1999 it has been the nation’s number one fishing port, netting 40 million pounds of seafood valued at more than $329 million in 2014, generating economic activity surpassing $1 billion.

Sustaining this economic fruition is a different matter, though. Boston-based consultant Sasaki Associates has produced a study of New Bedford’s waterfront, a scheme that seeks to further the area’s economic longevity. 

Proposals vary from advocating investment in particular areas and buildings to introducing other industries to the area. An example of the latter can be seen in the suggestion to enhance access—both public and private—to the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction where national and international buyers bid on fish. “A direct connection between fishing boats and the seafood auctions would improve the efficiency of getting fish to the consumer and make the process a transparent experience for the public,” reported Sasaki. Additionally, this would allow tourists to witness fish trading, something that is popular in, London, Sydney, Tokyo, and even, as Sasaki points out, Chatham, Massachusetts.

Read the full story at the Arch Paper

First-Ever Fishery Improvement Project Launched in Japan

November 10, 2016 — The following was released by Ocean Outcomes:

Sustainable seafood movement takes a big step forward in East Asia as industry, fishermen, and NGOs come together to launch the “Tokyo Bay Sea Perch FIP”, the first project of its kind in Japan.

Tokyo, Japan — In 2016, the market value of sustainable seafood reached an all-time high of $11.5 billion USD, placing further incentive to increase the sustainability of fisheries across the globe. Asia’s share of global seafood production is up to 69%, by some estimates, but only 11% of this is certified as sustainable seafood production including Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certifications. As such, implementation of Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) in Japan will ensure the growth of the Asian sustainable seafood market.

Ocean Outcomes (O2) and Kaiko Bussan Inc. today announced its launch of the “Tokyo Bay Sea Perch FIP”, Japan’s first Fishery Improvement Project (FIP). The project was introduced by Seafood Legacy Co., Ltd. to Seiyu GK, a subsidiary of Walmart Stores, Inc., the American multinational retail corporation and global leader in sustainable seafood, who have decided to support this project that will improve the sustainability of the sea perch fisheries in Tokyo Bay. As part of the project, at the end of October 2016, Seiyu test marketed the “Tokyo Bay Sea Perch FIP” product in 4 stores in the Kanto area and received positive feedback from customers regarding the quality, freshness and the reasonable price of the products. Going forward, Seiyu will discuss its support for this project including continued “Tokyo Bay Sea Perch FIP” product sales in stores and project grant contribution.

  • About Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs)

A Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) is a collaborative project between fisheries stakeholders, such as fishermen, businesses, distributors, and NGOs, to improve the sustainability of a fishery. Two-thirds of the top 25 North American retailers, comprising 90% of the global seafood market, have committed to supporting FIPs. Projects like the “Tokyo Bay Sea Perch FIP” are vital if fisheries want to improve and access global markets.

Tokyo Bay is a major fishing ground for sea perch and a historically and culturally important sourcing region for edomae sushi, the style of sushi created during the late Edo-period (late 19th century) that influenced the nigiri sushi that is common today. The “Tokyo Bay Sea Perch FIP” will ensure sustainable fisheries management and the enjoyment of sea perch for generations to come.

As a first step in the project, Ocean Outcomes collaborated with Kaiko Bussan to complete an assessment of current fishing practices calibrated against internationally recognized best practices standards. The assessment found opportunities to modify fishing practices and gather additional data as steps which could better inform fisheries management and lead to more sustainable practices overall. These opportunities, described in detail in the FIP work plan, include plans to better monitor bycatch of endangered, threatened, and protected species, plans to collect fishery data to better evaluate and monitor stock abundance, and a commitment to work towards a more collaborative management plan.

Below are comments from each organization regarding the launch of the FIP.

Shunji Murakami (Ocean Outcome / Japan Program Director)

“Launching the Tokyo Bay Sea Perch FIP is a monumental moment for the sustainable seafood movement in Japan. Improving fisheries practices benefits both marine resources and fishing communities.”

Kazuhiko Oono (Kaiko Bussan, Inc. / President and CEO)

“Fishery improvement, while a new concept for Japanese fishermen, makes sense. We harvest, process, and sell the sea perch we catch, so our business is completely reliant on abundant sea perch resources. As the resource declines, so does our fishery. This project will ensure we’re harvesting the optimal amount of sea perch while not negatively affecting the amazing environment in which we work.”

Wakao Hanaoka (Seafood Legacy Co., Ltd. / CEO and Founder)

“Our hope for this project is to invigorate the Japanese market in a way that encourages cooperation amongst retailers and producers in the implementation of more sustainable fishing practices. This will benefit ocean ecosystems, businesses, fisheries, and local communities.”

Kumie Wama (Seiyu GK / Vice President of Corporate Affairs)

“Responsible and sustainable fishing practices, which the participants of “Tokyo Bay Sea Perch FIP” have committed to undertake, are very important for the future of marine resources in Japan. As a company that relies on shared marine resources, we consider it our corporate social responsibility to provide environmentally friendly products to our consumers.”

Sadness prefaces the closing of the world’s biggest fish market, Tokyo’s Tsukiji

October 6th, 2016 — The world’s biggest fish market is Tsukiji Shijo in Tokyo, and it never stops moving.

All night long, refrigerated trucks deliver fresh fish from across Japan and frozen seafood caught around the world. At dawn, Tsukiji’s tuna wholesalers huddle in a chilly room and inspect what’s been hauled in.

“People with sense can tell the quality of the fish right away,” says wholesaler Eiji Kusumoto. “Those without? No matter how much they look at the fish, they won’t know.”

Kusumoto buys 10 to 15 giant tuna each morning at auction. He and rival fish sellers peruse and poke the tuna to decide how much they’re worth. This is serious business: a single fish once sold for $1.8 million.

When bells ring out across the auction floor, the appraisal period is over. Auctioneers holler out prices in a rhapsodic chant, and then the bidding starts.

“The bids are made by putting out your fingers — one, two, three, four. One [finger] could mean 1,000 yen, 10,000, yen, or 100,000 yen. But when you look at the fish, everyone knows which it is,” Kusumoto says.

When the auction’s done, Kusumoto’s tuna are loaded onto wooden carts and rolled to his stall on the market floor. He and his son cut the huge fish with band saws and toss the heads and other scraps into buckets. They lay the deep pink fleshy pieces out for chefs and shopkeepers to inspect.

At Tsukiji, there’s an art to that arrangement.

“We display the fish so that you can see the fat content and color easily,” Kusumoto says.

And if they do it well, they’re sold out by 11 a.m.

Kusumoto and his son are the third and fourth generation of their family to do this kind of work at Tsukiji. And they’ll likely be the last. The market is expected to close this winter.

Read the full story at Jefferson Public Radio 

New Tokyo leader postpones plan to move world’s biggest fish market

September 1, 2016 — TOKYO — The newly elected governor of Tokyo has postponed a plan to relocate the world’s biggest fish market, one of the city’s most famous landmarks.

Gov. Yuriko Koike announced Wednesday that she will decide on a date only after an environmental assessment of the new site is completed in January. The move had been scheduled for early November.

The current Tsukiji fish market is to be moved to the site of a former gas plant in Toyosu, a reclaimed area in Tokyo Bay, raising concerns about soil contamination.

“It is a market that handles fresh food and seafood,” Koike, a former national environment minister, said at a news conference. “The perspective of consumers about food safety is valuable, and I believe that citizens come first.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times 

In Tokyo, Tsukiji Fish Market Braces for an Uncertain Future

November 13, 2015 — Tokyo is known for its neon lights and armies of salarymen who spill out of office towers in often indistinct neighborhoods.

But amid that giant urban crush is Tsukiji fish market, the world’s largest. In a city in a rush to wipe away its history, the market is a gem that evokes Japan’s pre-World War II past and its love of food.

The wholesale market on the banks of the Sumida River several minutes from Ginza opened in 1935 and is best known for its predawn tuna auction. But navigating the market’s cramped and slippery corridors can be treacherous and, while fascinating, is primarily for viewing, not sampling.

The retail market next door is more inviting. Roughly eight square blocks, the outer market, or Jogai (pronounced JOE-guy), is chockablock with small, family-owned retail shops selling fish and meat, seaweed and sweets, knickknacks and kitchen supplies. Shopkeepers with raspy voices invite passers-by to look at their goods or eat in their restaurants, some of which are tucked away in alleys. In my dozen years working in Tokyo, including several at The New York Times bureau across the street, and on my annual visits since then, my wife and I have never grown tired of wandering the market’s mazelike streets. We stock up on dried seaweed, Japanese snacks and other sundries, and dine at surprisingly affordable restaurants. We love the shopkeepers and their gravely voices, quick wit and candid opinions.

Yet this gustatory wonderland is in danger. Next year, the Tokyo government will move the wholesale market a few miles away to Toyosu. There, mammoth fishing ships will dock next to the market, speeding delivery of tons of fish. A road that the city is building will pass through where the wholesale market is now, to connect the Olympic Village for the 2020 Tokyo Games with the main sporting venues about 10 miles away. When the wholesale market vanishes, Tsukiji will lose some of its working-class feel and potentially some of the merchants who now cater to the market’s many workers, something that makes some people in Jogai anxious. The topic is never far from their minds, and on recent trips to Tokyo, we have spoken with shopkeepers to get a sense of what lies ahead for our favorite haunt.

Read the full story at The New York Times