SAPPORO, May 22 (News On Japan) –
The season’s first public sale for Yubari melons, a signature specialty of Yubari in Hokkaido, was held on the Sapporo Central Wholesale Market on Friday morning, with a pair of the premium melons fetching a report 5.8 million yen.
Futami Seika, a fruit and vegetable wholesaler based mostly in Kushiro, Hokkaido, positioned the profitable bid, surpassing the earlier report of 5 million yen paid for 2 melons in 2019.
The melons might be displayed at a grocery store in Tokyo by way of May twenty fourth earlier than being served freed from cost to prospects on May twenty fifth.
Yubari melons originated within the former coal-mining metropolis of Yubari in Hokkaido, the place farmers started trying to find a high-value crop suited to the realm’s restricted farmland and well-drained soil after the conflict. Melon cultivation had been tried within the area earlier than World War II, but it surely was revived within the Nineteen Fifties as town seemed to develop distinctive agricultural merchandise.
The breakthrough got here after an agricultural extension officer took an curiosity in a domestically grown red-fleshed melon referred to as Spicy Cantaloupe, which lacked sweetness however had a particular perfume. Farmers crossed it with Earl’s Favourite, a candy green-fleshed melon, and in 1960 produced the hybrid selection now referred to as Yubari King, the melon offered beneath the Yubari Melon model.
In the identical 12 months, 17 farmers established the Yubari Melon Association, introducing shared cultivation requirements, delivery guidelines and quality-control strategies that helped construct the fruit’s popularity. Unlike many different melon-producing areas, Yubari has continued to develop the identical Yubari King selection for greater than six many years, with seed stock strictly managed and manufacturing permitted solely inside the metropolis.
Initially offered primarily in Hokkaido, Yubari melons started gaining wider recognition within the Nineteen Seventies as direct delivery expanded and former coal miners who had moved to different components of Japan helped unfold consciousness of their hometown specialty. The melon’s orange flesh, wealthy perfume and tender, melting texture progressively turned it into considered one of Japan’s best-known luxurious reward fruits.
The model later turned a mannequin of regional agricultural safety. Yubari Melon was registered beneath Japan’s Geographical Indication safety system on December twenty second, 2015, among the many first seven merchandise protected beneath the scheme and the primary from Hokkaido. The registration restricts use of the title to melons assembly outlined manufacturing and high quality requirements in Yubari.
The first public sale of the season, held every year on the Sapporo Central Wholesale Market, has develop into a symbolic occasion marking the arrival of early summer season in Hokkaido, with profitable bids usually serving as promotional purchases quite than abnormal market costs. The newest report was set on May twenty second, 2026, when two Yubari melons offered for five.8 million yen, surpassing the earlier report of 5 million yen set in 2019.