TOKYO: Japan’s tuna market, the world’s largest, is taking an outsized hit from the coronavirus pandemic, pressuring restaurants and wholesalers at Tokyo’s sprawling Toyosu fish market to adapt to survive.
“Our sales are down by 60% compared to last August,” said 47-year old Yasuyuki Shimahara, owner of an “izakaya” dining bar specialising in tuna dishes in Tokyo’s Kanda business area. While some customers buy the boxes as gifts for elderly family members, others are put off by the lengthy process of defrosting tuna, which involves leaving the fish in the fridge for several hours.
That meant he was losing out on big orders, since customers tended to buy 30 to 40kgs of tuna at a time for events such as wedding banquets and funerals, while sushi restaurants and izakayas generally placed smaller orders of around 10kgs and 6kgs respectively. But he said there had been a slight pickup in overseas orders recently, with those from Russia in particular returning to pre-pandemic levels.Japan’s imports of high-value tuna jumped 10% in 2019, while bluefin imports surged 13% as businesses prepared for big events like the 2020 Olympics, which was later postponed, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN said.
Tokyo’s sushi restaurants, which tend to be popular among people from other regions, are getting fewer visitors from outside the capital, said Toshio Katsukawa, associate professor at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology.