TOKYO -- Plans to open the new Toyosu wholesale fish market to the general public are currently under consideration due to lower sales than anticipated.

April 11 marks six months since the opening of the new Toyosu wholesale market in the capital's Koto Ward. The new market is a modernized replacement for Tsukiji market, which closed for business after 83 years on Oct. 6, 2018. Since transferring to the new Toyosu site, trading has been limited to fresh fish sellers, restaurant owners and other business customers.

With the current downward trend in the number of goods exchanged at the market showing no signs of abating, trade associations are demanding that the market's fortunes be improved by opening it to the public. However, concerns regarding hygiene and safety have been raised in relation to the possibility of large unspecified numbers of visitors coming through the trading floor.

In a recent promotion event, "Saturday marche," a fresh fish and vegetable outdoor market event open to the public, was held on a bright April 6 morning at Toyosu market. The site used for the event is earmarked for eventual construction of the Senkyaku Banrai Shisetsu, a visitor center for the wholesale market. However, at 9 a.m., an hour after the public event's opening, customers were scarce. A local woman visiting for the first time was disappointed by the event. "I came here especially today, but I can't buy anything in the traders' market, and the stuff on sale at the event is very limited. I couldn't get a feel of the Toyosu atmosphere at all."

Trading at Toyosu and the Tokyo Central Wholesale Market as a whole is fundamentally for business traders. Even so, at the Tsukiji market visitors were permitted to enter the market from 11 a.m., and the sight of individuals buying from wholesalers was not uncommon. Sales of crab and herring roe were high with non-business customers during the end of year period. But with the new Toyosu market's enclosed structure designed to maintain temperature and hygiene levels, visitors are not allowed to enter the trading market and can only observe goings-on through glass screens.

The metropolitan government's expected bump in numbers with the movement of the market has failed to materialize. The former Tsukiji fish market's peak trading year was in 1987, when 810,000 tons of marine products changed hands. The number now is around half of that. Although preservation methods are much better at the Toyosu market, business is down 6.3% in the five months from October 2018 to March this year compared with the same period a year before. Kiyoshi Ohazama, director at seafood wholesaler Chuo Gyorui Co., says the industry faces multiple challenges. "We're facing a low in available fish stocks coupled with an increasing number of people eating much less of it," he said.

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike told a December 2018 press conference, "We want to consider setting certain rules for public visitors to the market and opening the market in the future."

At a separate press conference in February this year, Yutaka Hayama, head of the Wholesales Co-operative of Tokyo Fish Market, signaled that chances of a public opening soon were good. He said that while he acknowledged controlled admissions were necessary, he also wants to welcome potential customers to the wholesale floor.

Dried goods seller Junichi Ito, president of Ohashi Shoten, has this month convened 14 other store owners to create the Toyosu market sellers group with an aim to appealing to individual customers. The group, which has joined the nearby Koto Shopping Street Association, is creating a shopping voucher system to be used at the market. Sales to individual customers are said to have made up less than 10% of trade at the old Tsukiji market, but Ito isn't motivated by numbers. "Our aim is to revitalize the market, rather than making money. This place should be open to Tokyo residents."

However, there are voices in opposition to opening the market up. They cite the dangers of accidents involving members of the public with the site's fast moving small turret trucks used to transport goods, as well as the risk of goods being spoiled by customers touching merchandise. At Tsukiji market sellers also had to contend with visitors who flouted rules browsing the market during its wholesale-only period before 11 a.m. A Nakano Ward fish seller who buys from the market daily told the Mainichi Shimbun: "The market is a serious place of business. I don't want the public getting in the way of that."

(Japanese original by Kentaro Mori, City News Department)