Japan's tuna market, the world's largest, hit hard by coronavirus pandemic

TOKYO, Sept 4- 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…

By Daniel Leussink

TOKYO, Sept 4 (Reuters) – Japan’s tuna market, the world’slargest, is taking an outsized hit from the coronaviruspandemic, pressuring restaurants and wholesalers at Tokyo’ssprawling Toyosu fish market to adapt to survive.

Businesses had hoped for more activity after Japan liftedits state of emergency in late May, but big events such asshareholder meetings and wedding banquets have remained on holdwhile many Japanese are still wary of going to restaurants.

Demand for fresh fish, especially the so-called “king ofsushi” bluefin tuna, has slumped as the pandemic wiped outorders for events. Tuna prices dropped 8.4% in July from a yearearlier, far steeper than the 1.5% annual fall in overall freshfish prices, government data showed.

“Our sales are down by 60% compared to last August,” said47-year old Yasuyuki Shimahara, owner of an “izakaya” dining barspecialising in tuna dishes in Tokyo’s Kanda business area.

Shimahara, who opened his restaurant a year ago, startedselling boxes of frozen tuna online in July to offset the hit tohis businesses from the drop in customers.

He has so far received about 200 orders for the 5,500 yen($52) box, which contains two pieces of “akami” red meat tuna,and plans to start selling 8,500 yen boxes of more expensive”chutoro” medium fatty tuna later in September.

While some customers buy the boxes as gifts for elderlyfamily members, others are put off by the lengthy process ofdefrosting tuna, which involves leaving the fish in the fridgefor several hours.

Kimio Amano, a 46-year old wholesaler at Toyosu, the world’slargest fish market, said the increase in household consumptionhad not been enough to make up for lost business elsewhere.

While there was a modest rebound in demand from restaurantsfor his fish after the state of emergency was lifted, he saidbig events and business from upscale dining bars, such as thosein Tokyo’s Ginza area, had been slow to resume.

That meant he was losing out on big orders, since customerstended to buy 30 to 40 kilograms (kgs) of tuna at a time forevents such as wedding banquets and funerals, while sushirestaurants and izakayas generally placed smaller orders ofaround 10kgs and 6kgs respectively.

“It was pretty good at the beginning of July, but it stalledagain from there,” said Amano, in his bluefin tuna stall, aftercutting up a 158kg tuna with a huge, sword-like knife.

Amano, who sells mostly high-quality fresh and frozen tuna,said he had seen 30-40% less business than usual over the pastmonth due to low demand from major hotels and restaurants atTokyo’s Haneda airport.

But he said there had been a slight pickup in overseasorders recently, with those from Russia in particular returningto pre-pandemic levels.

STAYING IN BUSINESS

Japan’s imports of high-value tuna jumped 10% in 2019, whilebluefin imports surged 13% as businesses prepared for big eventslike the 2020 Olympics, which was later postponed, the Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations said.

In 2018, global imports of tuna were valued at $15.7billion, while Japan was the biggest tuna importer that year.

But the pandemic has hit the industry hard and Japan’s tunaimports fell 18% in the first six months of 2020 from a yearearlier, finance ministry data showed. With people still wary ofgoing out, the outlook is unlikely to change soon.

Tokyo’s sushi restaurants, which tend to be popular amongpeople from other regions, are getting fewer visitors fromoutside the capital, said Toshio Katsukawa, associate professorat the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology.

“If you talk with people from such shops, (they say) nobodyis coming because travel to Tokyo has been cancelled,” he said.

Kana Kikuchi, who works at a life insurer, said the Japanesetend to go out for sushi to celebrate special occasions. But, inlate August, she took her daughter to Shimahara’s tunarestaurant on an ordinary week night just to show support.

“We’re coming so that the restaurant can stay in business,”said the 45-year-old.

Kikuchi said she does not usually eat tuna at home becauseof the challenging defrosting process.

To help customers like her, Shimahara has added instructionbooklets in the boxes sold online on how best to defrost andserve the tuna.($1 = 106.1800 yen)(Reporting by Daniel Leussink; Editing by Ana Nicolaci daCosta)