As a former resident of northeastern “Fruit Kingdom” Yamagata Prefecture, the top producer of cherries in Japan, I often used to send locally grown fruit as gifts. There’s no way, however, that I would be able to afford the record price that one small batch of cherries recently fetched at an auction in Tokyo (sorry, friends).
In Yamagata, you can even pick your own all-you-can-eat cherries in the greenhouses.
On January 5, at Ota Market’s first wholesale auction of the year in Tokyo, produce wholesaler Funasho Group claimed the winning bid for Yamagata-produced premium Sato Nishiki cherries. 500 grams of the fruit sold for its highest price ever – 1.3 million yen, which is 100,000 yen higher than the winning bid last year.
▼ Sweet and sour Sato Nishiki cherries are widely considered to be the top cherry variety in Yamagata.
It’s also the fourth year in a row that Funasho Group has won the first shipment of Sato Nishiki cherries as part of their wish for everyone involved in the food industry, including producers, distributors, and consumers, to have a successful year ahead. The cherries were then promptly sold at Tokyo’s Yaoko Marketplace Higashi-Yamato branch on the day of the auction.
▼ Funasho Group managers who placed the winning bid
We certainly hope that these Sato Nishiki cherries tasted sublime to their eventual buyer – especially considering our team of writers had trouble telling them apart from regular supermarket ones last summer.
Source: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- Do expensive 10,000 yen Japanese cherries taste better than cheap ones from the supermarket?
-- Yamagata kids on way to school accidentally say “good morning” to wild bear
-- New canned sakura liquor beverage appears in Japan, courtesy of Suntory 【Taste test】
© SoraNews24
3 Comments
Login to comment
Moonraker
Of course it is a marketing stunt but it has been proven that people will rate a food or wine more highly the more they pay. They have to justify to themselves why they paid so much. Generally people don't have a very discriminating sense of taste but most like to believe they have and high prices can hack that disparity.
Moonraker
Wouldn't it be nice though if all these ornamental cherry trees actually produced a cherry crop to eat, even if they were not the best. It's a kind of waste really that they don't. In Spain they have almond trees that look nice, smell nice and produce nuts too.