Tsukiji Market Fighting to Protect Fish from Summer Heat

August 12, 2018

Tokyo- Seafood wholesalers at Tokyo's Tsukiji market are struggling with this summer's scorching heat, trying to keep fish cool in the aging market not fully closed from the outside environment.

Work to renovate the market and replace its aging air conditioners is not a realistic option because the market's functions will be transferred to a new wholesale market in the nearby Toyosu district in October.

Tsukiji wholesalers are beating their brains out to find ways to protect their products from the heat in this final summer for the Tsukiji market.

Strict temperature management is necessary particularly at a selling space that handles frozen tuna.

Wholesalers try to keep the temperatures there around 15 degrees Celsius so as not to damage the freshness of the pricy fish.

But air-conditioning equipment at the section stopped working properly just as the summer heat began to intensify in mid-July, causing record-high temperatures at many locations in Japan.

Because of the trouble, temperatures stay high around 18 degrees in some places in the frozen tuna section even in early morning hours, raising concern that the products may be affected.

To deal with this, fish wholesale and trucking companies cooperate to store frozen tuna inside trucks with powerful freezing equipment until just before the selling space opens at 4:30 a.m.

After being put on the selling space, the tuna is covered with sheets in order to keep the fish frozen. Cardboard boxes are piled up near entrances to help prevent cool air from flowing out.

"We're just barely able to keep the product quality" from deteriorating, said a wholesale company official.

The situation is more severe in the selling space for other fish such as mackerel, which is exposed to outside air and has no air conditioning. Wholesalers use a lot of ice and coolants to keep the fish cold.

Most of the fish handled at the space is contained in styrene foam boxes full of ice. But ice often melts inside the boxes on very hot days, Tsukiji people say.

In order to protect their products from the heat, wholesalers add fresh ice during the selling hours and even cover boxes with ice and coolants.

A wholesale company official said that the amount of ice the company used to cool fish by early this month "nearly doubled" from the year-before level.

Even sample boxes to allow buyers to visibly check the quality of fish are covered with transparent films in an effort to delay deterioration of the fish inside.

"We try as much as possible to deliver fish quickly to shorten the time it stays (at Tsukiji)," said a middle trader who has just bought fish at the space.

The market's struggle is expected to go on for some more time as the country is forecast to have further spells of very hot weather. Jiji Press