Popular seafood items are drifting away from ordinary consumers in Japan due to soaring prices.
Imported seafoods familiar to ordinary consumers, such as shrimp, salmon and tunas, are now seeing sizable price increases in Japan.
The rising trend has been spurred by such factors as supply shortfalls caused by the spread of disease at overseas farming sites and lackluster fishing catch, plus the ongoing downturn of the yen's value.
Also industry observers point out the growth of global demand for seafood over a long-term range is in the background of the price hikes.
Retailers and restaurants in Japan are coping with this situation by raising the retail prices and changing menus and food materials.
With respect to shrimp, contagious diseases broke out in various farming sites in Asia from the latter half of last year.
Landings at farming ponds in Thailand--the largest exporter of shrimp in the world--and China this year are projected to decrease by 30-50% over the previous year.
The wholesale price of Thai vannamei in Japan has nearly doubled from the level a year ago, with the price of Chilean coho also going up in a similar range.
Supply of salmon shrank across the board mainly due to the disease affecting Chilean trout--a commodity competing with coho.
As for tunas, dealers' trading price of frozen bigeye tuna surged about 30% from the spring this year at major landing ports such as Shimizu, Shizuoka, west of Tokyo.
Tuna fishermen are witnessing lackluster haul in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Tuna fishing boats from Taiwan and other countries have been limiting their operations because of the sluggish tuna market in Japan until the first half of this year and the yen's decline.
Analysts note the move to raise prices among retailers. Akidai, a supermarket in Tokyo, sells Chilean coho for about Y150 per 100 grams, which is about 50% higher than the price a year ago.
Large-size shrimp which is in short supply fetches over Y250 per 100 grams, a level 10% more than a year earlier.
The supermarket will possibly reduce the chance of offering special sales for bigeye tuna. Toshin Suisan, a specialized fresh fish chain in Tokyo, has been upgrading prices of various commodities from time to time. It is now trying to increase sales of pre-cooked foods—using less expensive materials.
They are marketing food products using more vegetables and special sauces together with shrimp and salmon in a bid to reduce the resistance of consumers toward price hikes of shrimp and other commodities.
The price uptrend is also impacting restaurant operators. Akindo Sushiro, the largest revolving sushi chain in Japan, recently stopped sales of five products using shrimp at its outlets.
Ganko Food Service Co. which operates Gankozushi chains mainly in the Kansai region centering on Osaka, reduced the amount of non-shrimp materials used in traditional Japanese dishes in a bid to restrain the prime cost.