Chisato Shizume‘Uminouchi’ is a new platform built by two Japanese businesses based in Fukuoka prefecture, Benners and Panorama. Benners has built platforms to connect buyers and sellers for selling marine products since its founding.
Iguchi, the president of Benners, has been familiar with the fisheries industry since childhood; his grandparents worked in the seafood processing industry, and his father runs a seafood wholesale business. His anxiety about the serious decline of Japan’s fishing industry has led him to start this new joint business.
There were approximately 400 thousand fishers in Japan around the 1990s. However, the number dropped rapidly to 150 thousand by 2019. Fishery is unprofitable, with many fishers barely make ends. The shortage of successors is also a dire issue. The spread of COVID-19 exacerbated this situation, because a lot of unloaded fish are unable to be shipped and the beach price of high-class fish such as Okoze (Stonefish) dropped by 90% from last year’s price. Iguchi wanted to help fishers overcome this difficult situation by producing a meal kit which uses the unshipped fish, and building a platform to sell them.
The two businesses shared the same passion for improving Japan’s fisheries industry, and thus began ‘Uminouchi.’ There are three goals to the concept of this platform:
1) Bring profit to the fishers
By working together with the restaurant industry that suffered damage from COVID-19, Uminouchi creates a new method of providing meals; the procedure of fishing, processing, producing and selling is streamlined for efficiency.
Many non-standard fish cannot be shipped, therefore often wasted or sold for almost nothing. But they can be just as valuable if they are processed and packed for meal kits. This will become a new income source for fishers.
2) Provide healthy and delicious meals to consumers
Fish contains protein, vitamin D and is also a great source of omega-3 fatty acids. By producing ready-made or seasoned fish meal kits, consumers can eat fish with ease while improving eating habits simultaneously.
3) Create a sustainable society by reducing food loss and rebuild fish eating culture in Japan
By finding a way to utilize non-standard fish landed at Shikanoshima, Fukuoka prefecture, Uminouchi will reduce food waste. And the promotion of the fish meal kit, will rebuild the fish eating culture in Japan, which was once the central to Japanese cuisine.
Platforms that connect producers and consumers for selling food such as ‘tabeloop’ and ‘Tabe Choku’ are becoming familiar in Japan, but Uminouchi is unlike the others since it processes the fish before packing for consumers’ convenience. According to a research by NHK, as the ratio of working women rises, there is a growing demand for ready-made meals. A lot of people have a positive impression about eating fish but find it cumbersome to cook. Therefore the seasoned or marinated fish that Uminouchi’s meal kit provides are likely to have high potential demand; convenient and healthy at the same time.
Uminouchi successfully raised capital by crowdfunding. Their supporters also received meal kits that will be sold on the new platform. Hereafter, Uminouchi is planning to add farm produce and livestock products along with their symbolic seafood meals.
