New Year’s salted herring roe sells for record ¥100,000

OSAKA – A rare selection of salted herring roe — a traditional Japanese New Year’s dish said to bring good luck — has fetched a record price of more than ¥100,000 per kilogram at a wholesale market auction in the city of Osaka.

The Osaka Municipal Wholesale Market handled salted red herring from the United States, Canada and some of the highest-grade caviar from Hokkaido for its opening auction Tuesday of the New Year’s produce.

It was a record sale for salted herring roe at the market located in Fukushima Ward.

Herring roe, or kazunoko, meaning number (kazu) and child (ko), symbolizes a wish to be blessed with many children in the new year. The auction price was expected to be higher this year due to a drop in the Pacific herring haul compared with last year.

Teiji Mizobuchi, president of a marine products wholesale company, made the successful bid for the salted herring roe product called Shio-kazunoko Marehibiki.

“I will sell this regardless of making a profit,” he said.

A limit of five boxes of the osechi-ryori New Year’s dish specialty was shipped to the Hanshin Department Store in Kita Ward, Osaka.

Regularly processed salted herring roe sold for ¥10,000 per kilogram, the same as last year. A large number of shipments of salted herring roe arrived from Canada, a favored source among Japanese customers.

Demand for salted herring roe, sold at department stores and supermarkets around the nation, starts to rise as the end of the year approaches.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

LATEST NATIONAL STORIES

South Korea's Supreme Court set to rule on Mitsubishi Heavy's wartime forced labor case on Nov. 29

South Korea's Supreme Court has said it will rule on a forced labor case involving Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. on Nov. 29, following a top court ruling last month that ordered another Japan...

In country's first name-change referendum, Sasayama voters back renaming city as Tamba-Sasayama

The city of Sasayama in Hyogo Prefecture will be changing its name to Tamba-Sasayama as early as next May following what city officials described as the country's first referendum on changing a ...

Restraints used on nearly half of dementia patients in regular hospitals in Japan, survey finds

Nearly half of those with dementia who have been hospitalized in Japan were physically restrained at some point to prevent them from harming themselves, according to a survey published Sunday.