On 31 January, the Fisheries Agency announced its lowest total allowable catch (TAC) ever for squid, at 67,000 metric tons (MT).
As recently as 2015, the TAC was 425,000 MT, or six times this year’s quota. The highest wholesale price ever of JPY 1,013 (USD 9.31, EUR 8.13) per kilogram was reached in December 2018.
Landings of Japanese flying squid (Todarodes pacificusis) at major ports across Japan in the first half of January this year were 202 MT, down 62 percent from the same period of the previous year, according to a Nikkei report.
The annual catch of Japanese flying squid catch in 2018 decreased from the previous low in 2017 by 30 percent to about 48,000 MT. Hakodate City, Hokkaido is a major squid port in Japan. Processors there are switching to other products such as salted mackerel, or importing squid from Argentina.
In 2011, Japan’s squid catch was nearly 250,000 MT. This fell to around the 160,000- to 170,000 MT-level for the next three years, and then from 2014 dropped sharply for two years to around 50,000 MT in 2016.
A change in migration routes due to rising ocean temperatures may have caused the decline. Increased catches by China and North Korea are also contributing. As squid only live about one year and are very fecund, they can rebound quickly if conditions are favorable.
Mid-January’s wholesale price in production areas was JPY 592 (USD 4.87, EUR 4.75) per kilogram, 10 percent higher than in the same period last year, and a record high. The volume of squid passing through Tokyo’s Toyosu Market in the third week of January was half that of the same period last year, and the wholesale price was 30 percent higher than a year ago.
Squid has traditionally been an inexpensive food in Japan, and a price of JPY 100 (USD 0.92, EUR 0.80) each for previously frozen product was common.
