Saury Prices Plunge in Japan after Recovery in Catches

September 2, 2018

Tokyo- Prices of saury, an autumn delicacy, have dropped across Japan thanks to a rapid recovery in catches in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido.

Some major supermarket stores in the greater Tokyo area have already started special sale, offering saury at around 100 yen each, in stark contrast to soaring prices in recent years caused by poor catches.

Saury catches had been sluggish since early July, when the fishing season started. Catches, however, increased in waters off the coast of Hokkaido in late August.

At a port in Nemuro, a major production site, daily catches twice exceeded 1,300 tons, matching a peak level during the full-fledged fishing season in autumn.

The total amount of catches at the port in August surged almost 40 pct from a year earlier.

Due to the large haul, wholesale prices plummeted at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market after a large amount of saury started to arrive on Thursday.

Prices of mainstay 130-gram saury stand at around 400 yen per kilogram, nearly half the year-before level and almost one-third of the prices before mid-August.

At supermarkets in the Tokyo area, retail prices dropped as low as around 150 yen per fish, nearly half the price in mid-August.

A midsize supermarket operator sells saury at 100 yen each in some stores. Such sale around this time of the year had not been held for several years due to poor catches.

Saury catches were originally expected to stay low in this year's fishing season.

As one reason for the recovery, an official from the Japan Fisheries Information Service Center said, "Saury is migrating (into fishing grounds around Japan) at a faster pace than last year."

An official in the fishery industry in Hokkaido expressed high hopes for continuing good catches, saying, "Schools of saury seem to be traveling closer to Japan." Jiji Press