Why do Japanese restaurants claim that the impact is not significant?, After suspending imports of Japanese aquatic products

On August 24th, Japan's Fukushima nuclear contaminated water was discharged into the sea, and our General Administration of Customs issued a notice to completely suspend the import of Japanese aquatic products. As soon as the news came out, the word "Japanese news" rushed to the hot search. At the same time, hot topics such as "Will a large number of Chinese Japanese restaurants close down?".

Beijing Youth Daily reporters visited some Japanese food stores to learn about the relevant situation.

The Japanese restaurant claims that the impact will not be too significant

According to the announcement of the General Administration of Customs, in order to comprehensively prevent the radioactive contamination risk caused by the discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, protect the health of Chinese consumers, and ensure the safety of imported food, the General Administration of Customs has decided to suspend the import of aquatic products originating from Japan from August 24, 2023.

After the announcement was issued, netizens focused their attention on Japanese food stores, and multiple entries about Japanese food stores were trending on Weibo in the afternoon of the 24th.

The Beijing Youth Daily reporter called several well-known Japanese restaurants and self-service restaurants in the Beijing area, and received a response that "the impact will not be too significant, only a few dishes.".

"Sea urchins are from Dalian, salmon is from Norway, and crayfish is from New Zealand. Currently, there are no Japanese seafood products," a staff member at a Japanese self-service restaurant in Beijing told reporters.

Some restaurants have stated that all ingredients previously sourced from Japan have been replaced with domestic or other imported aquatic products. Some Japanese restaurants have also stated that they will remove some dishes that cannot be replaced by raw materials, but most of them are fish, and the dishes involved will not be many.

There are not many Japanese aquatic products in the market

In fact, in the catering raw material market, seafood from Japan is not mainstream.

The reporter of Beiqing Daily interviewed Wal Mart, Sam's Club, Metro AG and other large chain supermarkets. Several supermarkets said that there were no aquatic products from Japan in their stores.

A business engaged in frozen aquatic products trade told the Beiqing Daily reporter that many of the common ingredients in some Japanese food stores were not imported from Japan, such as crayfish mostly from New Zealand, peony shrimp, sweet shrimp, king crab, etc. from Russia, Arctic shellfish from Canada, salmon mostly from Norway, tuna, oysters and sea urchins mostly from China.

Some people believe that as a Japanese cuisine, Japanese cuisine should use ingredients from Japan to be authentic, and some restaurants have also grasped this mentality and put forward the banner that the ingredients come from Japan. Last year, a high-end Japanese restaurant in Hangzhou became popular due to its menu indicating that the ingredients for the dishes were from Japan, but actually came from Hangzhou Agricultural Market and Qingdao One Seafood Center. This Japanese restaurant has been visited by Wang Sicong and others, with an average consumption of around a thousand yuan per person.

Of course, it does not mean that the aquatic products used in Japanese restaurants are all falsely labeled as originating areas. "Some high-end Japanese food stores may rely on air freight to deliver fresh products directly from Japan, especially fish that are only used in Japanese cuisine, such as sweet fish, golden snapper, and sea urchin. However, most Japanese food stores, especially those that use frozen products, purchase them from our raw material market," said the aforementioned merchants.

The import volume of Japanese aquatic products has decreased in July

According to publicly available information, among Japan's aquatic products exported in 2021, shrimp scallops accounted for the highest proportion, reaching 21.2%; Next are 8.2% for swordfish, 7.3% for mackerel, 6.8% for bonito and tuna, 5.7% for pearls, and 5.1% for processed sea cucumber.

According to data released by the General Administration of Customs of China, in July this year, China imported fish and other aquatic products from Japan for 235 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 29%; The total import volume from January to July this year was 1.937 billion yuan; In 2022 and 2021, the total import volume was 3.396 billion yuan and 2.535 billion yuan, respectively.

On the contrary, Norway, as the main source of salmon in the domestic market, exported nearly 70000 tons to the Chinese market in the first half of this year, with an export value of approximately RMB 3 billion.

Japanese catering companies instead use Chinese seafood

In fact, Japanese cuisine is the way Japanese cuisine is made, and not all ingredients need to come from Japan, especially some people's concept of "classic Japanese ingredients" such as sweet shrimp, salmon, etc., which are actually imported by Japan.

Some aquatic products in our country not only have high production and good quality, but also have affordable prices. Many of them have been used by Japanese merchants to impersonate Japanese products.

Since last year, Japanese companies have been repeatedly exposed for using Chinese aquatic products to impersonate Japanese aquatic products. First, some enterprises were exposed to using Chinese undaria as Japanese undaria for more than ten years, and then Japanese fishery practitioners threw the clams imported from China on the mudflat of Kumamoto and picked them up, turning them into Japanese "domestic" clams.

In addition, Japan also has several merchants, including chain catering brands, which fake eel imported from China into eel produced in Aichi, Japan. After being discovered, the merchant stated that Chinese made eel has a large and soft body, and the price is lower, but to protect the image of the shop owner, they disguised the place of origin.