Last orders as Tokyo’s Tsukiji market relocates

TOKYO: For decades, Tokyo’s Tsukiji market has been the beating heart of a world-class culinary capital, supplying Michelin-starred chefs and drawing tourists who queue for hours to glimpse predawn tuna auctions.

But this week it will finally shut its doors and relocate from its dilapidated but central location to a new site in eastern Tokyo, after a lengthy and controversial process, hindered by pollution rows and construction delays.

Traders will sell their last wares at Tsukiji’s inner market on October 6, shutting up shop after one final tuna auction.

The mammoth move will begin the following day, with vendors expected to file out of the market in a mass exodus to the new site, where operations start on October 11.

The relocation has been in the works for decades, driven in part by the rundown quarters where vendors sell 480 different types of seafood worth US$14 million each day.

This summer, a heatwave virtually overwhelmed the market’s outdated air conditioning, forcing wholesalers to keep pricey produce in cool trucks until moments before auction.

The market’s new location in Toyosu promises state-of-the-art facilities. Special doors will help keep halls cool and sterile, while gawping tourists will be confined to a viewing gallery behind glass.

For some vendors, the changes will be a welcome improvement from conditions at Tsukiji, where throngs of visitors interfering with the actual business of the market have irked wholesalers.

But the move also has its detractors, with concerns about everything from Toyosu’s location, far from clients, to pollution at the new site. — AFP