What about 79324 Japanese restaurants in China?, Nuclear wastewater discharge into the sea

In the ranking of Dianping, a Japanese restaurant that sells high-end ingredients with an average price of 997 yuan per person can rank among the top three in the entire Zhongshan city. In August this year, the owner of this store, Zhang Jian, decided to transfer the store.

More than a month ago, he saw a news closely related to himself in the media: Japan announced plans to discharge the treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea. Subsequently, Chinese customs announced a ban on importing food from ten prefectures in Japan, including Fukushima, and implemented 100% inspection on food, especially seafood, from other regions of Japan.

The Japanese restaurants in China have been most affected by this policy. In the past, it only took 2-3 days for Japanese seafood to be caught and delivered to restaurants in China. Now, this time has been delayed by at least 5 times. For Japanese restaurants that value fresh ingredients, in fact, it is difficult for Japanese seafood to enter China.

Japanese cuisine is the most influential overseas cuisine in China's catering industry. According to data from Dianping in June 2023, the New First Line Zhicheng Data Platform found that there are 79324 Japanese restaurants in mainland China, ranking sixth among all local cuisines; Among them, 378 Japanese restaurants have an average consumption of over 1000 yuan per person, with Beijing and Shanghai accounting for one-third of them. The opposite is also true, according to public data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan, mainland China ranks first in Japan's aquatic product exports in 2022.

But when we carefully examine Japanese restaurants in China, we will find that this influence is actually limited to a small number of stores. For most low price Japanese food stores, the tightening of imported food materials has little impact, such as Lamian Noodles shops, eel shops and bird burning shops. Because most of their ingredients come from mainland China, for example, eels are usually farmed in Fujian, and bird roast shops mainly use Chinese chicken. In the past decade, the improvement of cold chain technology and logistics speed in China has also improved the preservation level of ingredients, shortened transportation time, and made it possible to buy fresh seafood from all over the country in Beijing. And another common ingredient, salmon, mainly comes from Norway and Chile, not from Japan.

What is truly affected by this policy is the mid to high end Japanese food stores that use fresh raw fish as their core ingredient. Their per capita consumption ranges from 300 yuan, 500 yuan to even 1000 yuan, 2000 yuan. Whether their signature dishes are sushi, omakase, sushi, or cut and cooked dishes, the high prices of these Japanese restaurants are mostly due to the ability to obtain high-quality and fresh Japanese ingredients, as well as the chef's understanding and processing ability of the ingredients.

Bluefin tuna, sea urchin, and other shrimp, crab, and shellfish are the three most popular and best-selling imported ingredients from Japan on Chinese dining tables. Japanese food stores that make a living from this now have to find alternative solutions.

Hokkaido sea urchins were once the flagship product of Japanese restaurants, with other Japanese restaurants selling them on average once every two weeks. This restaurant located on Dongqiao Bridge in Beijing sells sea urchins twice a week. The sea urchin products originally sold in the store were divided into two types: one was directly supplied by Hokkaido seafood merchants, and the other was produced in Dalian. After receiving the notification, Yuzuo urgently entered the last batch of Hokkaido sea urchins, and thereafter, only Dalian made sea urchins could be sold in the store.

The shelf life of Hokkaido sea urchins is only 15 days, and 4-5 days have passed since the fish was received. The optimal consumption period for sea urchins in their breeding period will be shortened by 2-3 days, and the available time for sale is less than 10 days.

The replacement of sea urchins may not necessarily affect the flavor. "Hokkaido sea urchins are currently in the breeding period, and the preservation period of sea urchins during the breeding period is short and the taste is not sufficient. Dalian sea urchins are currently in their best consumption period, and their flavor is even stronger than Hokkaido sea urchins," said Wang Yihan, the head of fish farming, to YiMagazine. The price of Hokkaido sea urchin made from fish is 1388 yuan/250g, while Dalian sea urchin is 398 yuan/100g, "which is lower in price and more accepted by customers."

On the left side is the high-end wooden box sea urchin from Hokkaido, on the right side is the wooden box sea urchin from Dalian, and on the front is the fresh sea urchin from Dalian.

Dongya Sushi also prepared early, and the owner and head chef of this omakese restaurant, Ichiko Tanioka, began gradually replacing Japanese ingredients with domestic seafood as early as the beginning of this year. Since January, every few days, Yukiko Tanioka has visited the fresh seafood market in Beijing to learn about the freshness and characteristics of domestic seafood, and establish a good trust relationship with fish vendors. "If the grouper that arrives today is particularly good, we may go to the scene to see it. If it is indeed good, we will tell the other party, 'You can tell me if you have this quality in the future'."

Yukio Tanioka arrived in Beijing in 2000. Initially, the sea urchin and tuna in the store were imported from Japan, while 80% of the fish shells came from Japan. At that time, he couldn't buy fresh sea fish locally. Now, 95% of the ingredients in the store are made in China. In his view, seafood produced in China is not inferior to Japan, and what is needed more is an adjustment in customer perception that "Japanese seafood is better than domestic seafood".

The Wanye Tuna Specialty Store adjusted its menu even earlier than Dongya Sushi. A year and a half ago, it completely replaced all ingredients except for tuna with domestic seafood, replaced pine leaf crabs with Russian ones, and replaced sweet shrimp with Korean ones. After observing a decrease in customer consumption levels during the epidemic, and considering the long testing and customs clearance time for Japanese imported seafood during the epidemic, the difficulty in ensuring freshness, and future nuclear wastewater discharge issues, Wang Jianjun, the head chef of Wanye, decided to replace the menu with more cost-effective domestic seafood. Wanye's per capita consumption also decreased from four to five hundred yuan to two to three hundred yuan.

At the same time, domestic ingredients have also become popular, and Japanese restaurants interviewed by YiMagazine in the First Financial News generally stated that the prices of Chinese ingredients have increased by 20% -30%.

But not all Japanese ingredients can be replaced, to be precise, they are of comparable quality. For example, the bluefin tuna produced in Nagasaki, Japan, is recognized as the best quality variety in the Japanese food industry due to its thick fat, evenly distributed fat, and soft and sticky meat. Fish farming consumes an average of 80-110 kilograms of bluefin tuna per month. Before the import policy adjustment was announced, Wang Yihan had just purchased one, so it can still be used for about half a month. But after this one is used up, Wang Yihan needs to consider alternative solutions. The solution for other stores is to replace it with Spanish bluefin tuna, but Wang Yihan is still hesitating because "there is still a certain gap in price and quality between Spanish Atlantic bluefin tuna and Pacific bluefin tuna belonging to Nagasaki, Japan.". The Atlantic bluefin tuna has a more prominent texture and is not rich in oil, requiring more time to drain acid and ripen.

At 7:30 pm, the first round of fish dishes had just finished, while the second round had not arrived yet.

Wanye has replaced Nagasaki's bluefin tuna with Spain's bluefin tuna, which is the earliest Japanese brand in China to hold a tuna feast. Since 2017, nearly a thousand bluefin tuna have been cooked. This is due to the high consumption of chain brands. On average, Wanye will purchase an entire Nagasaki bluefin tuna every two days, with only three per week, while most other Japanese restaurants can only consume 1/4 of their tuna purchases per week. With more purchases, Wanye can obtain lower purchase prices from the cooperating Beihai fishing ground.

Although the bluefin tuna in Nagasaki is widely recognized as having the best taste, Wang Jianjun had already tried all the tuna on the market three years ago. Therefore, after stopping the purchase, he quickly switched to Spanish bluefin tuna. "If we were prepared early, we would have two sets of cards playing with you. If we don't have this card, you should immediately take out that set of cards. Otherwise, it will take time for you to create a new menu."

After replacing with Spanish bluefin tuna, the proportion of tuna dish sales decreased from over 50% to 20% -30%, and the frequency of purchases was also changed to only one per week. The reason is precisely the concern of the fish industry: Spanish bluefin tuna has less fat and more tendons, requires more time to acid and mature, and the quality is unstable. Out of 10, 5 fish heads cannot be eaten raw.

After replacing Nagasaki's bluefin tuna with Spanish bluefin tuna as the signature of Wanye, the attractiveness and brand effect to consumers have decreased. The decrease in restaurant demand is transmitted to upstream suppliers in the food supply chain, resulting in a decrease in their order volume. "The order quantity has been halved. Previously, there were two shipments per week, one for three or four, and one for seven or eight. There were 40 Nagasaki tuna shipments per month, but now there are only about 10 Spanish tuna shipments," said Wang Dinghong, the person in charge of imported fresh food delivery company Jiajixian.

Many seafood, including bluefin tuna, have different flavors due to geographical factors such as water temperature and sea area. In addition, the processing of seafood caught in China is not as delicate as that in Japan. "Chinese fishermen, after catching fish, are not as professional or particular as Japan. They may simply throw the fish directly into ice cubes," Zhu Zhongjie, the head chef of Dongxu Jizhao Harvest and Cooking Association HAPPI SAKE, told YiMagazine. Japanese fishermen can quickly extract the nerves of the fish after catching them, causing them to faint, thus achieving the freshness of the fish until it is delivered to the restaurant.

Therefore, the current situation further tests the chef's understanding of local Chinese seafood. This high-end banquet making restaurant, which had been preparing for a year, collided with strengthened testing when it began trial operation in early July. Zhu Zhongjie didn't expect that their new menu would be replaced with domestic ingredients before last week. Unlike the well prepared Japanese restaurant, Dongxu can be said to have "not done any preparation". But Zhu Zhongjie said that most of his core staff in the kitchen have been working with him for four or five years, cooperating well and having great experience in controlling ingredients.

"For example, Japanese throat black fish is rich in oil and can be delicious without too much seasoning after grilling with salt." Zhu Zhongjie gave an example, "However, domestic throat black fish have relatively loose meat and little oil." Fish without oil and fat have a dull texture when grilled, so Zhu Zhongjie will use more flavorful methods such as deep frying to cover up the shortcomings of domestic throat black fish and make up for the lack of oil and fat. ".

The lack of flavor in substitute ingredients can be replaced by cooking techniques, supply channels, and prices, but for high-end Japanese restaurants, the real challenge is customer perception. Previously, imported ingredients from Japan were one of the biggest signs of these stores, and even some restaurants that had already heavily used local ingredients dared not make such claims to the public, even though the quality of domestic ingredients was no less than imported ones. But after the nuclear wastewater discharge incident fermented, the biggest sign became the biggest risk. For some Japanese food stores, this may be a perfect time to educate consumers, but for more stores, they need to worry about whether their high pricing can continue to be maintained.

Previously, this high pricing had already borne the pressure of declining consumer power. Zhang Jian told YiMagazine of First Financial News that although the transfer occurred after the tightening of import policies, in reality, his store had already been maintained. After the lifting of epidemic control measures, his store did not experience the expected "retaliatory consumption", and instead, the customer flow decreased. This situation is not uncommon in high-end Japanese restaurants in China. This time, the market may face a reshuffle, as these restaurants need to find new competitiveness beyond stacking ingredients.