Tsukiji traders struggle for survival

The arcane rituals of the early morning bidding at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market have become a popular tourist attraction, but the hollering auctioneers and hand- waving traders who provide all the excitement are losing ground in Japan's modern fish market.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market at Tsukiji, Chuo Ward, is known as the "kitchen" of the capital, handling about 2,000 tons of marine products daily.

But the tense auctions that were traditionally its centerpiece are giving way to direct negotiations between suppliers and retailers such as supermarkets. Wholesalers now do about 80 percent of their business through such one-to-one arrangements.

With the nation's fish consumption declining and distribution channels diversified, a fierce battle for survival has erupted among traders and wholesalers.

At 3 a.m., while most of Tokyo sleeps, workers for Tsukiji Fresh Maruto Co., a subsidiary of wholesaler Daito Gyorui Co., start work at a refrigeration facility in the market. Maruto is one of the market's "authorized buyers." It is allowed to take part in auctions as well as trade directly with wholesalers.

Their job is to sort fresh fish bought directly from wholesalers into small portions to meet individual orders from a supermarket chain, which requires a large variety of fish that each of its 100 or so outlets can sell by the end of the day.

One package of six kinds of fish includes sea bream, threadsail filefish from Nagasaki and striped pigfish from Fukuoka. The workers are told to take care that no set is the same as was sent the previous day. Each set must include at least one red fish, which attracts customer attention.

A little after 4 a.m., the work is done and a truck departs for the supermarket's distribution center.

"We cannot wait for the auctions if we are going to deliver fish before the stores open," said a spokesperson for Maruto, which began the service about 10 years ago.

It is the sort of activity that is threatening the livelihoods of Tsukiji's "middle traders," who traditionally bought from the wholesalers at auction and sold on to shops and restaurants.

Structural changes in retailing have partly caused the changes. Big supermarket chains often prefer to operate outside the personal connections of the traditional auction system or outside markets. A revision of the Wholesale Market Law in 1999 abolished restrictions on sales outside auctions and allowed direct transactions.

Many middle traders have been left in dire straits. Their numbers have fallen from 1,000 to 738 over the past 20 years.

But not everyone is taking the change lying down. Some are fighting back by offering new services on top of their highly developed skills in handling and assessing the quality of fish.

Hamacho, a long-established middle trader at Tsukiji, now prepares fish to order for client restaurants.

On a recent morning, Sadao Ozawa, Hamacho's third-generation president, was already filleting a large sea bream at his company's processing facility as the auctions start. Ozawa, 76, used to take part in the auctions himself as a young man. Now, his workers buy most of their fish through direct negotiations.

Each fish carries a pink slip showing how it should be processed; how it should be cleaned, scaled and filleted; whether it should be gutted; and whether the head should remain.

With blood stains on his white apron and scales on his arms, Ozawa continues cutting fish until almost midday. He started preparing the fish for clients about 10 years ago at the request of a restaurant chef and built the processing facility four years ago at a cost of 30 million yen ($317,000). Customer restaurants save money because it cuts work at their end and reduces garbage, but Ozawa does not charge for processing, describing it as a "customer service."

"It does not work if we simply say, 'We stock fish. Please buy it,'" Ozawa says. "Middle traders who cannot process fish will not survive."

Takayuki Katamata, the third-generation president of another middle trader, Tsukiji Sandai, has started his own pub-restaurant.

Katamata, 31, opened Sakanaya Iki near the market in 2008, as pressure from the supermarkets cut traders' margins to the bone.

The shop sells fish during the day and transforms into a pub in the evening with fresh fish from Tsukiji on the menu.

Katamata views his relationship with his customers as vital to his new role: "I would like them to know there are tasty fish around."

Only about 30 kinds of fish, including tuna and other high-priced fish, are still traded at Tsukiji's auctions. The total value of transactions at Tokyo's three fish markets has almost halved from its peak in 1990 to 470 billion yen in 2009. Tsukiji accounts for almost 90 percent of the business.

But despite the difficulties, Tsukiji's traditional place at the center of Japanese fish culture is not yet a thing of the past.

While local fish cooperatives increasingly sell to supermarkets directly, an Oita prefectural group trying to spread word of its ribbonfish, a local specialty that is eaten as sashimi, has chosen Tsukiji as the focus of its promotional efforts.

"If it gets appreciated at Tsukiji, where many restaurants buy, it will give it a (high) status," an official said.