Tsukiji Threatened by Globalization

[nullpointer]

Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market Threatened by Globalization
...
``A good tuna is like a sumo wrestler,'' says Shiro Kamoshita, 61, who represents the third generation in his family to work at Tsukiji as an intermediate wholesaler, judging the freshness and quality of a tuna by peering at the flesh in its tail end with a flashlight and perhaps taking a taste.

``A sumo wrestler eats plenty, but because he exercises, the fat is smooth and has lots of muscle. It's the same for a tuna.'
...

Foreign fishermen have been eager to cash in on Japan's demand for high-quality tuna, which has been surging since the late 1970s. In 2003, Japan imported $12.4 billion of fishery commodities, more than any other country, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Japan consumes about a third of the world's total production of tuna each year, or about 630,000 tons.

That's about 11 pounds per person per year. Most of it is top-quality, sashimi-grade tuna, not the kind sold in cans in most of the rest of the world. Until recently, almost all of it was sold in fish markets such as Tsukiji, which began its daily auctions of tuna, shrimp and sea urchin in the 1930s.

[Taro Toporific]

Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market Threatened by Globalization

Damn that's a bad typo in the headline that should correctly read:


Tsukiji Fish Market Threatens Global Fish Stocks

[Mulboyne]

Bloomberg: Contaminated Soil to Raise Cost of Moving Tsukiji

Shifting Tokyo's Tsukiji Market may cost more and take longer than planned after the new site was found to be more contaminated than previous surveys showed, the Nikkei newspaper reported. Tokyo Metropolitan Government officials detected benzene contamination 43,000 times greater than permissible levels in some of the soil at the planned site in Toyosu, across the Sumida River from the market's present location, the report said, without saying where it obtained the information. The government will have to spend more than 100 billion yen to remove soil containing the carcinogen and prepare the site, formerly used for a plant of Tokyo Gas Co., to host the fish market, the report said.

[ttjereth]

Bloomberg: Contaminated Soil to Raise Cost of Moving Tsukiji

Bah, what's one more carcinogen in the seafood.

[Greji]

Bah, what's one more carcinogen in the seafood.

Extra ingredients increase the cost...

[ttjereth]

[Samurai_Jerk]