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Because Tukiji was built to accommodate the railroad-based transportation system, the facilities became outdated for the modern truck-based system.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

$300K Tuna Sold at Final Tsukiji Fish Market Heads to NYC Sushi Chain

January 19, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The 890 lb. bluefin tuna sold for $323,195 at the final New Year’s auction at Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji fish market has made its way to New York City.

The fish was bought by the Onodera Group, which has 11 restaurants in seven cities around the world, including London, Paris, Shanghai and Los Angeles. Sushi Ginza Onodera, located on 5th Avenue in New York City, is the lucky restaurant to score the fish for its diners. This week they’re serving sushi made from the massive bluefin tuna – and at no extra charge. However, there is a catch. The restaurant only offers its sushi in an “omakase setting,” which means that the course selection is in the hands of the chef. And it can get pricey. While the restaurant does not list prices online, guests on yelp say that lunch can range from $100 to $150 per person, while dinner can reach $400 per person.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

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