Japan Sees Decline in Fish Consumption

Japan sees decline in fish consumption and the government responded fast. There’s a new project by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan called “Fast fish”, the project aim is to promote fish consumption.  We know that Japanese people often eat fish and they have great variation of fish-based dish. Japan fish and shell fish consumption per capita per day is the top of the world. Japanese people eat about 3 ounces of fish daily ,on average, while typical Americans eat fish perhaps twice a week. But, consumption of fish and shellfish is getting lower these recent years. This shift begin in early 2000’s, and since that Fish consumption has been steadily declining. The sales of sea foods at Department stores have taken a negative turn for seven years.

Experts consider there are three reasons fish consumption in Japan is decreasing. First, fish are not popular among children. Many children would rather eat spaghetti than squid sashimi or stewed fish. And that is hard challenge for working parents who greatly appreciate the convenience. Second, cooking a fish is difficult. Nowadays, many young people don’t know how to cooks fish properly. If they want to eat fish, they rather to go to restaurants than making it themself. Third, and probably the most influental, the price of fish now is higher than meatThird, and probably the most influental, the price of fish now is higher than meat  

As been said before, to overcome this problem, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan cooperate with local fisherman’s to promote fish consumption by a project called “Fast fish”. This project main objective is to make Japanese people eat more fish, by simplified the way to cook fish, so that young people and busy parents can make fish-based dish at home easily. And hopefully the fish consumption will increase by this project.

As fish consumption steadily declining in Japan, meat consumption steadily increasing. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reports that since 1961, the production and consumption of every major meat category has increased significantly, especially pork. In Japan, the case is also the same. In fact, between 1970 and 2005, the total amount of pork consumed in Tokyo only, increased by about 160% (equal to 11.5kg  per person in 2005) and 90% for pork (equal to 20.1kg per person in 2005). . The radical change in Japanese menus towards greater levels of meat consumption can also be easily illustrated through the rising popularity of grilled meat restaurants ( yakiniku) and fast food chains.

Fish and pork consumption in Japan

To see perspective from young people, we had our own survey with students from Tokyo University of Agriculture as respondents. From the survey, we can see that actually the respondents still prefer fish than pork for daily basis (graph 1). But in the case of application, there is not a big difference between those two commodity, they are almost the same (graph 2). And this “Fast Fish” project which simplified the way to cook fish, may succeed because a 63% of respondents consider it is hard to cook a fish..