Vending machines in Japan latest outlet for whale meat
YOKOHAMA, Japan — A Japanese whaling operator, after struggling for years to promote its products amid protests from conservationists, has found a new way to cultivate clientele and bolster sales: whale meat vending machines.
The Kujira (Whale) Store, an unmanned outlet that recently opened in the port town of Yokohama near Tokyo, houses three machines for whale sashimi, whale bacon, whale skin and whale steak, as well as canned whale meat. Prices range from $7.70 to $23.
The outlet features white vending machines decorated with cartoon whales and is the third location to launch in the Japanese capital region. It opened Jan. 24 after two others were introduced in Tokyo earlier this year as part of Kyodo Senpaku Co.’s new sales drive.
Whale meat has long been a source of controversy but sales in the new vending machines have gotten off to a good start, the operator says. Anti-whaling protests have subsided since Japan in 2019 terminated its much-criticized research hunts in the Antarctic and resumed commercial whaling off the Japanese coasts.
Conservationists say they are worried the move could be a step toward expanded whaling.
“The issue is not the vending machines themselves but what they may lead to,” said Nanami Kurasawa, head of the Iruka & Kujira (Dolphin & Whale) Action Network.
Kurasawa noted the whaling operator is already asking for additional catches and to expand whaling outside of the designated waters.
Kyodo Senpaku hopes to set up vending machines at 100 locations nationwide in five years, company spokesperson Konomu Kubo said. A fourth is to open in Osaka this month.
The idea is to open vending machines near supermarkets, where whale meat is usually unavailable, to cultivate demand, a task crucial for the industry’s survival. Major supermarket chains have largely stayed away from whale meat to avoid protests by anti-whaling groups and remain cautious even though harassment from activists has subsided, Kubo said.
Company officials say sales at the two Tokyo outlets have been significantly higher than expected, keeping staff busy replenishing products.
Japan resumed commercial whaling in July 2019 after withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission, ending 30 years of what it called research whaling, which had been criticized by conservationists as a cover for commercial hunts banned by the IWC in 1988.
Under its commercial whaling in the Japanese exclusive economic zone, Japan in 2022 caught 270 whales, less than 80% of the quota and fewer than the number it once hunted in the Antarctic and the northwestern Pacific in its research program.
The decline occurred because fewer minke whales were found along the coast. Kurasawa says the reason for the smaller catch should be examined to see if it is linked to overhunting or climate change.