Japan which imports sea urchin from Chile approximately monopolistically
There are a lot of things which the price hike of cheap fishery products has been not able to buy casually in succession before. On earth what will happen in Japan which should have been a fisheries large country?
A Japanese consumes 90% of the sea urchin produced all over the world
There are the fishery products that Japan yet continues monopoly as the last consuming place while the international presence of the Japanese market decreases in a form pushed for a surge of the overseas demand including a salmon and prawns rapidly. It is a sea urchin.
The sea urchin that thick sweetness and the fragrance of the beach spread when I can enter the entrance boasts of deep-rooted popularity for existence of the one and only for a sushi topping. However, there are few people who can still understand the taste abroad, and even Europe and America and Asia where sushi took root in as food culture are handlings called “a product for seniors”.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world sea urchin fish catches (with the husk) of 2018 are about 67,500t. They beat, and fish catches of Japan are 7,629t and only more than 10%.
On the other hand, Chile which is the world’s largest sea urchin fishery country occupies 30,446t and about half of world fish catches. And it is Japan that imports approximately 95% of fish catches from Chile. With a lot frozen sea urchin from Chile, about 90% of the frozen sea urchin circulating in Japan is said to be Chile product. By the way, the self-sufficiency ratio of the Japanese sea urchin continues being considered to be 10% degree and is said to be it even if Japan uses 90% of the world sea urchin.
However, I may not eat the sea urchin as before in the near future, too. We seem to do not have to worry to lose by buying like other import fishery products for the time being in an international market with the sea urchin for the reason of only a Japanese eating. However, still the import prices soar.
According to the trade statistics of Ministry of Finance, the mean import prices until September, 2022 of the frozen sea urchin from Chile are about 8,610 yen per kilometer. As for this, about 2.5 double from about 1.5 times, 2016 from the previous year. As well as other import fishery products, I have effect of the rise in weak yen and energy price on the continuous rise in price of the sea urchin. However, it means that the one which is characteristic of a sea urchin is easy to be affected by the personnel expenses remarkable rise in comparison with an other fish class.
A diver sinks and picks up the sea urchin inhabiting the bottom of the sea by a one one hand and gathers you. Washing and the manual labor of the body continue even after it is landed to break a husk. I move to an arrangement factory afterwards. As a dirt and bacteria attach to a husk as for the sea urchin, husk break and the arrangement are performed by all means at another place. At first an elaborate alien substance check is carried out in the arrangement factory. As it leads to a serious accident when a splinter and a husk get mixed with a sea urchin here, scrupulous attention is paid.
It is served to a tray and I am frozen and, after a process for prevention of form break such as alum processing or the branch (I boil it quickly), wait for shipment afterwards. In to here, the edible part becomes about 6-8% of the unshelled weight.
The sea urchin which becomes high in personnel expenses rate
After the shipment, まで which is just before sent to end-consumer, the cover of the tray may not be opened. For example, I pick you up on the vinegared sushi rice afterward when I defrost it as a tray in the conveyor belt sushi restaurant. “There not being this for whose fault when there were the issue of hygiene and alien substance mixture such as the food poisoning, quality abnormality either.”
Carefulness is found for the processing of the sea urchin by just that much, and, as a result, personnel expenses rate rises. It rises more than 30% in five years from 2016 when I see the average wages of Chile on the basis of local currencies. This rise is reflected to a price, too.
In addition, it accelerates a price remarkable rise that a prospect of the amount of production is very difficult. When fresh water hits, the sea urchin weakens. If wind is strong, the port is closed, too, and import stops, and a factory cannot operate. The sea urchin is very vulnerable to stormy weather.
As the diver catching a sea urchin performs it for those fishing when the speculation such as seaweed or the crab produced in the same sea area went up, there is the problem that a person catching a sea urchin disappears.
In uncertainty of such an amount of production, the Japanese eating and drinking chain and fisheries trading company which want to secure stock actually tend to order quantity more than required. The tendency creates a kind of bubble states to both a seller and a buyer, and the price of sea urchin from Chile is lifted.
In the conveyor belt sushi industry, the sea urchin should have already reached the place at the very limit of profit. A sea urchin warship was sold in the 100 yen level until the time that is a major chain, but is disappearing now. I may not get profit by the pricing more than 200 yen per 1 perception when I estimate it with the present market price either.
But I add the pulling in customers effect of the sea urchin becoming the come-on, and there is the chain which I continue providing as a menu for the moment. The price hike that what is provided in the state such as the rolling by hand that a sea urchin was carried on not a warship very poorly currently and “うに parcel” at many public chain stores did it this way will be a factor. As of April, 2023, a volume of the conveyor belt sushi suddenly decreases the sea urchin by a high price of the last year and has trouble about the price negotiation of the new season very much.
However, it cannot be said so that a tendency to this rise in price will continue in future. When Japan importing sea urchin from Chile approximately monopolistically holds the line on spending according to a market mechanism, a price should fall down soon. But the world of the real business is not so simple. “Only as for oneself as for the buyer” a viewpoint of Japan becomes the weir adversely.
Japan and Chile are communities bound together by common fate
The sea urchin export in Chile began in the 1980s, but, as for the fishery of Japan and the Chilean sea urchin supplier, there is the process that raised quality in the form such as the three-legged race as a partner of the one and only each other from the case.
However, the local sea urchin industry which I completely depend on Japan for is totally destroyed and falls into it now if Japan has halved the import of sea urchin from Chile. Among frozen sea urchin from Chile, 25-35% are used in a conveyor belt sushi chain now. If they do not buy it, some local sea urchin suppliers are destroyed. Then Japan loses the suppliers of the sea urchin.
Japan and Chile are communities bound together by common fate in such a meaning.
The relations will continue in future in future if the conveyor belt sushi industry performs a raise with a rise in stocking price of the sea urchin, and consumers can accept it. However, the Japanese cannot eat sea urchin at hundreds of yen of prices casually anymore when it is not made.
