A contribution by Associate Professor Yutaro Sakai of the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, as the opening remarks for Policy Research Institute for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Review No. 126, discussing innovation in freshness management technology in the fisheries industry.
Japan's fish consumption peaked at 40.2kg per person annually in 2002 but has been declining since, being overtaken by meat consumption in 2006. While various factors such as preference changes, cooking effort, and housing environment constraints are cited as background reasons, "information asymmetry" is particularly highlighted as an important issue. The analysis shows that consumers' difficulty in accurately assessing fish freshness is one of the factors contributing to declining fish consumption.
In the traditional fisheries industry, fishermen, wholesalers, and retailers have assessed freshness based on experience and intuition, but consumers lack specialized knowledge, making it difficult to distinguish good from poor freshness. Recent changes in sales formats from local fish shops to supermarkets have reduced opportunities for consumers to directly communicate with sellers, further expanding "information asymmetry" as information about fish quality is rarely available.
As a solution to this challenge, Associate Professor Sakai advocates the importance of freshness "visualization" technology. Specifically, by introducing IoT sensor-based temperature and time management systems and AI image analysis-based freshness assessment technology, it becomes possible to quantify and visualize freshness evaluation that has traditionally relied on experience and intuition.
As an actual success case, a store-front freshness display experiment conducted in collaboration with Maxvalu Tokai Co., Ltd. in 2024 is introduced. By conducting freshness measurements before opening and affixing "Maximum Freshness Guarantee Seals" to sell at higher unit prices, sales amounts increased by 10% compared to conventional products without freshness indication, showing concrete results.
From this demonstration result, freshness indication is positioned as having great potential, and it is predicted that in future fisheries, how freshness is appropriately conveyed to consumers through easy-to-understand displays will become an important competitive factor.
The article concludes that freshness visualization technology is not merely technological innovation but an important initiative that contributes to gaining consumer trust and improving the competitiveness of the entire fisheries industry.