HOKKAIDO — In the coming weeks, Singapore will hear a lot about scallops here, see them on restaurant menus and buy them to cook at home.
Japan is launching something of a charm offensive, showcasing the plump, velvety warmth of its northernmost island.
The Japan Foreign Trade Organization, which promotes industry and investment, has invited teams of journalists, chefs and influencers here to see how seafood is grown and harvested, and representatives from 10 fishing cooperatives will travel to Singapore in April. Talk to marine industrialists about loading your products.
The search for new markets is urgent, after Japan announced that it would discharge treated radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean starting in August 2023.
China, the world’s largest seafood importer, has banned all seafood imports, raising safety concerns. Russia did the same. Hong Kong and Macau have banned Japanese seafood in some areas.
The measures dealt a blow to the industry, which is recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and grappling with falling domestic demand due to declining population.
Since an earthquake in the Tohoku region in 2011 triggered a tsunami that toppled three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, some 540 pieces of water have been collected from Olympic-sized swimming pools, reports the AFP news agency.
The plan is to discharge the treated water over 30 years, Nikkei Asia reports. Japan says the sale is safe and the United Nations’ atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, agrees.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said China had agreed to negotiate to tackle the seafood ban.
Scallops are big business for Hokkaido, which the government calls “the kingdom of scallops. “They are grown in northeastern Hokkaido, facing the Sea of Okhotsk.
In the 1950s, scallops used to get caught in the wild, which has led to overfishing and other problems. Today, scallops are farmed in marine fisheries and shellfish feed on plankton embedded in drifting ice coming down from Siberia, like wild scallops.
According to the Hokkaido Fisheries Bureau, bivalves account for 36 of the seafood produced here, with iwashi or sardines coming in second, while 20ArrayPollack, kombu, salmon and other seafood make up the rest.
Shigeyuki Kobayashi, 59, head of the bureau’s seafood section, says more than 80 of the scallops produced in Japan come from Hokkaido. The rest comes from neighboring prefectures of Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi.
Some 700 Japanese companies exported $600 million worth of seafood to China in 2022, news firm Reuters reports. It is Hokkaido’s largest scallop market, selling 93% of the scallops produced here in 2022, according to figures from the bureau.
The European Union, the United States, ASEAN, Hong Kong and other countries imported the remaining seven percent.
Most of the scallops shipped to China were frozen with their shells. Some (about 20%) were fed there and the rest were processed and shipped to other countries, including the United States.
With inventory languishing in freezers, and the price of scallops tanking, Japan has swung into action.
Shortly after China banned Japanese seafood, Kishida announced measures in August 2023 for the fishing industry, drawing tens of billions of yen from state budget reserves.
There are two budgets worth 80 billion yen (727 million S$727 million) to expand new markets and keep surplus frozen fish until they can be sold when selections increase.
Help also came from the United States, which began buying Japanese scallops in bulk, according to Reuters reports from October 2023, which added that it had never bought seafood from Japan before.
The scallops will be used to feed infantrymen at U. S. Army bases and aboard ships. Some will be sold in the department stores and restaurants on the bases. Reuters adds that the U. S. is expanding bulk purchases to include all types of seafood.
The other Japanese have also joined the industry. In fact, industry players say domestic demand has increased.
Nobuyuki Moriwaki, 51, general manager of Sapporo Chuo Suisan, a seafood wholesaler in Hokkaido, told The Straits Times at Sapporo’s central wholesale market: “Scallop sales have been hit too hard. Domestic demand is strong because the Japanese government has encouraged us to eat more scallops. This has been useful to us.
Domestic demand has been so strong that the Notsuke Fishing Cooperative has resumed scallop exports to Singapore, which were halted when Covid-19 hit.
Tomoaki Naito, 65, its CEO, says four to five tonnes of his scallop crop are sold each year through agents in Singapore.
In 2023, 70% of the cooperative’s catch was sold domestically and the rest went to Taiwan and the United States.
Why is Singapore excluded from the premium hotate crop?
Naito says: “Prices have been volatile and there is also the weakness of the yen. We expect the value to return to pre-Covid-19 levels. “
It adds that its reference value is 6,000 yen per kg of peeled and cleaned extra-large scallops, a value that traders sourcing from Singapore have not yet reached.
The office’s Kobayashi says the work on locating new markets and sales channels began before the Chinese ban, because Japan’s declining population meant a smaller domestic market, as well as the fallout from the pandemic and the border closures.
China’s ban has made the task more urgent, he adds.
He says Hokkaido schools now serve scallops twice a month and the branch has partnered with Seicomart, a Hokkaido convenience store chain, to sell hot canned foods that come with curried scallops and rice.
Signs at outlets quote Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki’s rallying cry: “Hokkaido seafood, like scallops, has nowhere to go. Let’s eat all the safe, secure and delicious Hokkaido seafood produced by fishermen. ” who strive to produce them. “.
It is applying with the Hokkaido Fisheries Federation to inspire other Japanese to eat more seafood by selling at mass retail outlets and issuing calls to action on social media platforms.
Kobayashi says the federation is also more active in pursuing new markets overseas, working with partners in the U. S. and Canada. USA, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries. He added that he has his eyes on ASEAN because the economies of ASEAN countries are strong and citizens have “purchasing power. “
Other projects come with the status quo of processing plants in Vietnam and Mexico, to upgrade those in China that are lately used to shell, wash, package and freeze Hokkaido scallops for shipment to other parts of the world; advertise other Hokkaido seafood products, such as flounder and yellowtail flounder, in markets; and, in addition to exporting raw seafood, Array also advertises and sells processed products such as canned scallops.
Students dine on Hokkaido scallops at school, workplace staff eat curried scallops for lunch at Seicomart, other Japanese strive to eat more locally produced seafood for the industry, it’s all very well.
But what does seafood look like?
Kobayashi says: “Regular inspections were done before the China ban. For the Japanese, these are basic measures. We know that Hokkaido seafood is very safe.”
How does he intend to get that message across to people outside Japan?
One of the projects is to conduct “shellfish poisoning tests to verify quality,” the office says. There are also plans to monitor the sea to verify that seafood is exported abroad and complies with those countries’ regulations.
Harutomo Takeda, 62, the mayor of the town of Saroma, a scallop-growing area in Hokkaido, says the scallops feed on plankton contained in melting ice from Russia, not from the Tohoku region, where the 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck.
Yoshiteru Abe, 72, president and CEO of the Saroma Fishing Cooperative, added that the organization conducts weekly liver tests on the liver of randomly chosen scallops for cadmium and other potentially destructive elements.
That’s what it did before the ban and until now you could eat scallops, even after the treated water was dumped in August.
He is committed to ensuring the protection of scallops, as his cooperative is one of three “elite scallop” operations on Lake Saroma. With a domain of 152 km², it is the largest lake in Hokkaido and the third largest in Japan. .
He says, “The scallops are bigger and the meat thicker. “
These high-end hot dishes whet the appetite of foodies, the kind of upscale restaurants they pay a more reasonable dollar for. They can reach more than 3,000 yen per kg.
The domain’s scallops are grown in the sea. Small scallops disperse on the seabed, where they feed on plankton in the water and grow to 12 cm or more in 4 years.
Some cooperatives use an agricultural method that involves hanging small scallops from ropes (60 to 80 each) in the lake. There, they will be protected from the elements and predators for at least a year.
After one year, the maximum scallops are dispersed into the sea to grow for 3 years before being harvested.
Takeda, mayor of the city of Saroma, estimates that about 700 million scallops that have spent a year in the lake are then transplanted into the sea. Another 100 million scallops are scattered in other regions: Shibetsu, Mombetsu and Okoppe. The remaining 100 million remain in the lake and grow, in four years, to become “elite scallops. “
Abe offers visiting hounds elite grilled scallops, tossed whole on a charcoal grill, where they remain until the shells open.
Scallops are thick and juicy. The coral (the orange eggs of the scallop) is just as thick and rich, and the brisket crispy. There’s no shortage of salt because seafood has just the right amount of saltiness. If eaten raw, scallops have a “saku saku” texture. Sumptuous elasticity and a sensitive sweetness.
He will be among the 10 fisheries co-operative bosses visiting Singapore in April to promote scallops.
At least one head of a fishing cooperative is thinking about how to offer Singaporeans the same quality of scallops freshly picked from the lake or the sea.
Scallops, including specimens, are processed before they are shipped. In a procedure that lasts 4 to 12 seconds, depending on your skills, the scales open the shells, cut the skirt, coral, liver and other innards, and release the valuable ivory. -Colorful scallop meat.
Shells, innards and scallop meat go down different chutes to be processed. The scallop meat is washed numerous times before being sorted and frozen for export or domestic consumption.
Toshio Hirai, 69, general manager of the Shibetsu fishing cooperative, is researching that there is a better way.
One of their boats takes newshunters on an excursion from the fishing port of Shibetsu to see how scallops are harvested at sea.
He says he could simply adopt a new generation that would freeze scallops in half shells at -40 degrees Celsius, then package them and ship them overseas.
“I need the scallops to taste the same as when they’re fresh,” he says.
Will Singaporeans bite? Many hands are firmly crossed.
Kobayashi says, “Hokkaido’s seafood has had ties to Singapore for a long time. We hope this continues. “
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This article first appeared in The Straits Times. Permission is required for reproduction.