HOKKAIDO, Jun 09, 2026 –
The first public sale of Raiden Watermelon, a specialty product of Kyowa in Hokkaido’s Shiribeshi area, was held in Sapporo on June ninth, with a pair of melons fetching a record-high 400,000 yen.
Known for its crisp texture, vibrant crimson flesh, and excessive sugar content material, Raiden Watermelon drew sturdy consideration on the Sapporo Central Wholesale Market, the place patrons gathered for the season’s opening public sale.
The prime bid reached 400,000 yen for 2 melons, marking the very best value ever recorded for the model.
The profitable bidder was a welfare providers operator primarily based in Iwanai, which secured the highest lot for the second consecutive 12 months. The firm mentioned it plans to donate the watermelons to a kids’s welfare facility within the city in 2026.
People attending the occasion sampled the fruit, with one taster describing it merely as “sweet.”
Japan’s record-breaking first-auction fruit gross sales are a long-standing custom that dates again many years and are much less concerning the fruit itself than about publicity, status, and regional branding.
The apply turned significantly outstanding throughout Japan’s financial increase years within the Nineteen Eighties, when luxurious reward tradition flourished and agricultural cooperatives started utilizing first auctions as advertising and marketing occasions. The first produce of the season is called “hatsumono” (the season’s first harvest), and lots of Japanese customers have historically positioned particular worth on being among the many first to get pleasure from seasonal meals.
As a end result, the opening public sale for premium fruits typically attracts firms keen to pay extraordinary costs far above market worth. The profitable bid generates nationwide media protection, giving helpful publicity to each the fruit-growing area and the client.
Some of essentially the most well-known examples embody Yubari King melons from Hokkaido, which have repeatedly set nationwide information. In 2019, a pair of melons bought for five million yen. Ruby Roman grapes from Ishikawa Prefecture have additionally commanded monumental costs, with a single bunch promoting for greater than 1 million yen. Premium mangoes, cherries, and apples have likewise attracted headline-grabbing bids.
The patrons are sometimes supermarkets, malls, wholesalers, eating places, or native firms in search of publicity. The media consideration generated by a report bid will be price excess of the acquisition value. An organization that spends a number of hundred thousand yen—and even a number of million yen—on a first-auction fruit could obtain tv, newspaper, and on-line protection throughout Japan.
For agricultural areas, the auctions function a robust branding software. A report value creates the impression of outstanding high quality and helps increase consciousness of the product all through the season. Even although bizarre customers could later purchase the identical fruit at regular costs, the publicity can enhance demand and help farmers’ incomes.
In latest years, some profitable bidders have additionally used the auctions for charitable functions. As within the case of the 400,000-yen Raiden Watermelon, firms often donate the fruit to kids’s houses, hospitals, or neighborhood organizations, turning the publicity occasion right into a goodwill gesture.
While a pair of watermelons promoting for 400,000 yen could seem extravagant, the transaction is finest understood as a advertising and marketing funding and a celebration of seasonal agriculture quite than a mirrored image of the fruit’s on a regular basis market worth. For the growers of Kyowa’s Raiden Watermelon, the report value alerts a profitable begin to the season and brings nationwide consideration to certainly one of Hokkaido’s best-known summer season merchandise.
Source: 北海道ニュースUHB